What’s Up With Darwin Wiggett?

January 23, 2010 By 2 Comments

Good friend to Photography.ca, Dar­win Wiggett is offer­ing a very rea­son­ably priced 2 day sem­i­nar in Can­more, Alberta on April 24–25 2010.  I’m a HUGE Dar­win fan and I highly rec­om­mend his work. Although I haven’t yet taken a sem­i­nar with Dar­win, I expect to within the next year.

Dar­win has also just announced a new photo con­test (The Cana­dian Land­scape Photo Con­test) on his blog where the win­ning image gets pub­lished in Out­door Pho­tog­ra­phy Canada.

NMP9850 - Cochrane, Alberta - Frosted tree, fence and field near Cochrane, Alberta

NMP9850 — Cochrane, Alberta — Frosted tree, fence and field near Cochrane, Alberta — © Dar­win Wiggett — All rights reserved.

Finally, Dar­win will also be fea­tured in our next pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast where he will share his insight on neu­tral den­sity fil­ters and grad­u­ated neu­tral den­sity fil­ters. This pod­cast should be recorded, edited and pub­lished next week so stay tuned for more Darwin.

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What’s Up With Darwin Wiggett?

January 23, 2010 By 2 Comments

Good friend to Photography.ca, Dar­win Wiggett is offer­ing a very rea­son­ably priced 2 day sem­i­nar in Can­more, Alberta on April 24–25 2010.‚ I’m a HUGE Dar­win fan and I highly rec­om­mend his work. Although I haven’t yet taken a sem­i­nar with Dar­win, I expect to within the next year.

Dar­win has also just announced a new photo con­test (The Cana­dian Land­scape Photo Con­test) on his blog where the win­ning image gets pub­lished in Out­door Pho­tog­ra­phy Canada.

NMP9850 - Cochrane, Alberta - Frosted tree, fence and field near Cochrane, Alberta

NMP9850 — Cochrane, Alberta — Frosted tree, fence and field near Cochrane, Alberta — ‚© Dar­win Wiggett — All rights reserved.

Finally, Dar­win will also be fea­tured in our next pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast where he will share his insight on neu­tral den­sity fil­ters and grad­u­ated neu­tral den­sity fil­ters. This pod­cast should be recorded, edited and pub­lished next week so stay tuned for more Darwin.

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Happy New Year!

January 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Happy new year to all the pho­tog­ra­phers that read our blog and lis­ten to the pod­casts! More pho­tog­ra­phy infor­ma­tion is on its way! Feel free to con­nect with me through this blog or our face­book fan page or twitter!

- Join the new Photography.ca Face­book page
– Fol­low me on Twit­ter http://twitter.com/markokulik

All the best in 2010!

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Should I ditch photography School?

November 30, 2009 By 3 Comments

Recently on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum this ques­tion (To go or not to go to pho­tog­ra­phy school) was brought up by forum mem­ber kat. She won­dered whether it was worth it to take a pho­tog­ra­phy pro­gram at the uni­ver­sity level.

It’s a very inter­est­ing ques­tion and it brought me back to my own uni­ver­sity days and reminded me of some­thing a sta­tis­tics pro­fes­sor once told me. He said that the WORST thing you can do (ON AVERAGE for the aver­age per­son) for your life­time earn­ings is to go to uni­ver­sity. This is because while you are going into uni­ver­sity you are rack­ing up debt and not mak­ing money. Obvi­ously for pro­fes­sional degrees (account­ing, med­i­cine, law etc.) there is no other way, but pho­tog­ra­phy is dif­fer­ent. You can either go to pho­tog­ra­phy school or learn pho­tog­ra­phy by your­self, online, by tak­ing work­shops, appren­tic­ing etc.

As for myself, I did go to pho­tog­ra­phy school and com­pleted a 2.5 year pro­gram after uni­ver­sity in the mid 90’s. I don’t regret it one bit, I love knowl­edge and photo school trained my eye quite well.

How­ever — If I were in this posi­tion today would I do the same thing?.…Honestly, I doubt I would.

The world these days is dig­i­tal, and there’s SO much excel­lent online learn­ing that wasn’t there when I stud­ied, plus the dark­room work that was so impor­tant then, has been replaced by digital.

I really think I’d rec­om­mend work­shops and self-learning over a full on pro­gram that takes 2–3 years. Keep in mind that AFTER the 2–3 years nobody will be wait­ing to give you a job, you will have to hus­tle BIG TIME and mar­ket your­self‚ BIG TIME..or else, on aver­age you will fail.

Another sober­ing stat from back in the day is that 2 years AFTER grad­u­at­ing from pho­tog­ra­phy school, only 20–25% of the grad­u­ates will be work­ing pho­tog­ra­phers. That stat still seems accu­rate to me today based on what I‚ see.

So what do you think — Is pho­tog­ra­phy school a waste of time?

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Freeman Patterson exhibition — Montreal till Nov.15/09

November 9, 2009 By 1 Comment

If you live in or near Mon­treal and love artis­tic land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy you OWE it to your­self to take a drive to Dol­lard Des Ormeaux to see the Free­man Pat­ter­son pho­tog­ra­phy exhibition.

Sun­rise at Koker­boomk­loof — ‚© 2006 Free­man Patterson

This exhi­bi­tion is AWESOME. Free­man Pat­ter­son has been shoot­ing land­scapes around the world and teach­ing work­shops for many decades. I’ve been a major fan of his for a good twenty years and I con­sider him to be a mod­ern mas­ter land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy artist. Every­thing about this exhi­bi­tion screams qual­ity. The images them­selves are gor­geous and I spent a good sev­enty min­utes look­ing at each and every one. The com­po­si­tion of each pho­to­graph is very well thought out as you would expect. Free­man is a teacher and expert at visual design and you’ll note the atten­tion he has paid to the fore­ground midground and back­ground. There’s excit­ing stuff going on in all 3 of those zones.‚ But every­thing else in the pho­tographs work too; expo­sure, colour and the print­ing. Gor­geous print­ing on heavy water­colour paper that reveals great tonal­ity from pure white to deep black with excel­lent shadow detail in most prints.

Free­man exhibits about 18 large sized pho­tographs that are around 20 X 30 inches. All the prints are for sale in small lim­ited edi­tions. The Gallery is located in the Dol­lard Civic Cen­ter (across the street from Marche de L’Ouest) 12001, boule­vard De Sal­aberry, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Qc. H9B 2A7 (Gen­eral Tel. # (514) 684‑1011).‚ Look for the LIBRARY, the gallery is in the base­ment of the library build­ing. Tues.-Wed. 12–4 PM, Thurs.-Fri. 2-5PM, Sat.-Sun. 1–4 PM and there are guided tours avail­able. The gallery is closed on Nov. 11th for remem­ber­ance day.

I have seen NO pub­lic­ity for this show…which is a trav­esty as this work is aching to be seen by pho­tog­ra­phy lovers. So take a drive to the West Island and you won’t be disappointed!

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My new logos — Thanks a ton Sylvain Grand’Maison

November 5, 2009 By 4 Comments

I’ve been want­ing a new logo for my own per­sonal pho­tog­ra­phy for quite some time now. There’s just some­thing about ‘sign­ing your work’ that I feel is impor­tant. For me, a sig­na­ture pro­vides a sense of clo­sure. There are so many ways to tweak/modify/enhance a pho­to­graph that some­times you’re not sure if your ver­sion is the fin­ished ver­sion. A sig­na­ture allows you to say, OK enough now, I’m done with this image, let’s move on.

I’d like to thank Syl­vain Grand’Maison BIG TIME for the great work that he did for me. For those of you that don’t know Syl­vain, he has one of the most pop­u­lar French Pod­casts (even though he’s per­fectly bilin­gual) in Que­bec called le Que­bec en Bal­adod­if­fu­sion. He also helps busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als get started in the social media space and works as a con­sul­tant in this regard. So why did I ask him to cre­ate my logos?‚ That’s because his back­ground is in graphic design and he still takes on the occa­sional graphic design gig.

So now I need YOUR help. I really dig both of these logos and I think I know which one I like best but I’d like some opin­ions. Which one of these above logos do you like bet­ter, the left one or the right one?

In choos­ing these logos Syl­vain pre­sented me with a bunch of dif­fer­ent choices on totally dif­fer­ent themes. Here is another design Syl­vain cre­ated. I love this one as well — it has a seri­ous Russ­ian feel. I’m not sure what I’ll use this red design for, but I do know what my next Face­book avatar will look like.

Filed Under: Opinion-personal-rant, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , ,

My new logos — Thanks a ton Sylvain Grand’Maison

November 5, 2009 By 4 Comments

I’ve been want­ing a new logo for my own per­sonal pho­tog­ra­phy for quite some time now. There’s just some­thing about ‘sign­ing your work’ that I feel is impor­tant. For me, a sig­na­ture pro­vides a sense of clo­sure. There are so many ways to tweak/modify/enhance a pho­to­graph that some­times you’re not sure if your ver­sion is the fin­ished ver­sion. A sig­na­ture allows you to say, OK enough now, I’m done with this image, let’s move on.

I’d like to thank Syl­vain Grand’Maison BIG TIME for the great work that he did for me. For those of you that don’t know Syl­vain, he has one of the most pop­u­lar French Pod­casts (even though he’s per­fectly bilin­gual) in Que­bec called le Que­bec en Bal­adod­if­fu­sion. He also helps busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als get started in the social media space and works as a con­sul­tant in this regard. So why did I ask him to cre­ate my logos?  That’s because his back­ground is in graphic design and he still takes on the occa­sional graphic design gig.

So now I need YOUR help. I really dig both of these logos and I think I know which one I like best but I’d like some opin­ions. Which one of these above logos do you like bet­ter, the left one or the right one?

In choos­ing these logos Syl­vain pre­sented me with a bunch of dif­fer­ent choices on totally dif­fer­ent themes. Here is another design Syl­vain cre­ated. I love this one as well — it has a seri­ous Russ­ian feel. I’m not sure what I’ll use this red design for, but I do know what my next Face­book avatar will look like.

Filed Under: Opinion-personal-rant, Photography blog entries Tagged With: , ,

Is this shot considered cheating?

October 31, 2009 By 4 Comments

You’ve just cap­tured the most beau­ti­ful shot of a rare duck. Every­thing is per­fect — the com­po­si­tion, the color bal­ance, and the sur­round­ings. So do you tell peo­ple that you cap­tured this shot in a bird sanctuary?

Some peo­ple may argue that this shot is not jus­ti­fied because it was cap­tured at a bird sanc­tu­ary — ‘cheat­ing’ if you will. If a pho­tog­ra­pher gets a shot like this from a refuge, it’s far less of an achieve­ment (because it’s eas­ier) than it would be get­ting that shot in the bird’s nat­ural surroundings.

On the flip side, oth­ers stand by the notion that being in a sanctuary/zoo does not guar­an­tee great pic­tures. It just means bet­ter access and more oppor­tu­nity to cap­ture the beauty you are search­ing for.‚ You cer­tainly still need to have skills and a good eye.

So who wins this argu­ment? You tell me! See what oth­ers are say­ing in our pho­tog­ra­phy forum.

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3 days left — Mois de la Photo — Montreal

October 8, 2009 By 2 Comments

There are only 3 days left to visit Le Mois de la Photo (Trans­la­tion: photo month) in Mon­treal. Le Mois de la Photo is a pho­tog­ra­phy event that takes place in Mon­treal every sec­ond year. I’ve been going to this event reg­u­larly in Mon­treal for about a decade. There is always a HUGE vari­ety of pho­to­graphic styles (from pho­tog­ra­phers from around the world) in this event and most exhi­bi­tions (espe­cially this year) are what I would call ‘alternative’.

From Hand to Mouth, 1993. Instal­la­tion view, The Amer­i­can Cen­ter, Paris, 1995. Photo: Jeff Guess. Cour­tesy of the artist

The above pho­to­graph (and this is one of the many exhi­bi­tions that I per­son­ally vis­ited) is a great exam­ple of ‘alter­na­tive pho­tog­ra­phy’ and‚ think­ing out­side of the box. The goal of this exhibit is not sim­ple, it requires thought; active thought. Peo­ple will expe­ri­ence this exhibit in a per­sonal way. Some will like it, some will hate it, and oth­ers will scratch their heads and go “Hmmmm”. Per­son­ally, I dug it big-time. I like things that are dif­fer­ent. I like to think and feel. I’m not into McDonald’s and their freak­ishly annoy­ing main­stream clown.

Here’s the ‘offi­cial web­site’ write-up on Guess’s exhibition:

With From Hand to Mouth (1993), a 22-metre long pho­to­graphic series, Jeff Guess treats view­ers to an orig­i­nal visual expe­ri­ence. The piece takes the form of a cir­cu­lar panorama hung from the ceil­ing of a dark­ened room. The artist assigns a par­tic­u­lar place to view­ers, who are invited to step into the cen­tre of the instal­la­tion. With­out a priv­i­leged view­point that would make it pos­si­ble to take in all the images at once, the work invites view­ers to move about, to cir­cu­late. From Hand to Mouth is shown with a sin­gle, iso­lated pho­to­graph, Fonce Alphonse (1993).

This exhi­bi­tion is just one of many that make up this year’s Mois de la photo. So get your shoes on and get out there this week­end to see the work before the exhi­bi­tion is over. Bring an open mind, your brain but leave your cash at home. The exhi­bi­tions and men­tal stim­u­la­tion are free.

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Shedding Some Light into Dark Rooms

October 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We’re in the dig­i­tal age, so why mess with‚a good thing by set­ting up an ancient dark­room? Well, set­ting up a dark room offers so much ‘hands on’ knowl­edge; it’s far more prac­ti­cal for learn­ing pho­to­graphic print­ing than you may think. The prin­ci­pals and tools of Pho­to­shop were par­tially based on how pho­tog­ra­phers worked in the dark­room. Curves, lev­els, crop­ping, sharp­en­ing, mul­ti­ple expo­sure print­ing, dodg­ing and burn­ing are just some of the things pho­tog­ra­phers have been doing in dark­rooms for generations.

Here’s 4 rea­sons why dark­room print­ing rocks;

1 — There’s that spe­cial ‘some­thing’ that comes from doing the major­ity of the work with your own hands. It is far more sat­is­fy­ing to pro­duce a print in the dark­room than by press­ing the print but­ton on your printer. Ask any good dark­room printer that has done both, they’ll tell ya. It’s true that dark­room print­ing takes longer and its pre­ci­sion is less accu­rate than dig­i­tal; and yet it’s still more sat­is­fy­ing.
2 — Since every­body is going dig­i­tal your work will stand out if you stay tra­di­tional.
3-‚ YOUR work will never be doomed to spend­ing its life on a hard drive or on a few web­sites, you’ll always have beau­ti­ful prints to hold and show off.
4 — I have a sneak­ing sus­pi­cion that dark­room prints printed today will be more valu­able than the same image printed dig­i­tally. Why? Because every dark­room print is some­what unique and tra­di­tion­ally, unique items have more value than mass pro­duced ones.

If you decide to set up a dark­room here’s a few things to be aware of. Before you start your dark­room make a floor plan of the room so you can more or less know how to lay­out the wet side and the dry side.‚ Will you be pro­cess­ing b&w and/or color? Colour print­ing is more com­plex (and requires a dif­fer­ent enlarger) than b/w print­ing so it’s prob­a­bly best to start with black and white. A good exhaust sys­tem is highly rec­om­mended as the chem­i­cals you’ll use (unless you buy a pro­cess­ing machine) are toxic.

What’s great to know is that because every­body and their uncle has gone dig­i­tal, there are amaz­ing deals on used dark­room equip­ment. Ebay is your friend!So get your feet wet! Enjoy a get­away from the dig­i­tal everyday…More on dark­rooms here in our pho­tog­ra­phy forum

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Underdog photo exhibition — Montreal

September 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Yes­ter­day I went to see the Under­dog pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion in Mon­treal. It’s a gallery specif­i­cally opened to sell beau­ti­ful prints of shel­ter dogs AND have dogs there at the gallery (from shel­ters across Mon­treal) that are avail­able for adop­tion. The pho­tographs are by pho­tog­ra­pher Jaime LeBlanc and they are well done indeed. All the money from the sale of the images goes to shel­ters. This image was taken at the exhi­bi­tion yes­ter­day with my cameraphone.

Today was sup­posed to be the last day until 7pm at 4922 Sher­brooke W. (514) 969 3376
BUT the response has been so amaz­ing that they are con­tin­u­ing the exhi­bi­tion for a short while.

Filed Under: Photographs, Photography blog entries Tagged With: ,

Point and Shoot cameras are good

September 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

So you are into your DSLR or SLR, and can­not imag­ine using another cam­era… espe­cially a point and shoot cam­era, right? Well they are often a good thing to have on hand in addi­tion to your DSLR .

Point and shoots (P&S) aren’t ideal for learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy. In fact they are a bad choice. Why? Because you can’t do many impor­tant things on most point and shoots (like change lenses, learn to man­u­ally focus a lens, man­u­ally meter eas­ily, change shut­ter speeds eas­ily etc.) that are essen­tial when learn­ing photography.

But — for some­one that already knows pho­tog­ra­phy, a point and shoot is very con­ve­nient due to its way smaller size. Many pho­tog­ra­phers want to have a cam­era with them at all times because there are always pho­to­graphic pos­si­bil­i­ties around us.

Would I ever bring a point and shoot to a pay­ing gig?‚ Maybe as a 3rd emer­gency backup. The cliche about not bring­ing a knife to a gun­fight holds true for pay­ing gigs and cheap cam­eras. But when I’m not shoot­ing, I want to relax with­out all the gear. I still need to carry pro­tec­tion (the P&S ) though, just in case.

Which point and shoot should you get?‚ There’s way too many out there to list. One that I have my eye on that seems like it may be tasty treat is the Canon Pow­er­Shot G11. It’s sup­posed to be out in Octo­ber. Buying/ordering through the B&H link above helps sup­port the site. Thx.

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