1. Just because you shoot something doesn’t mean you have to show it. If you want to market yourself as a commercial photographer and you just shot the best wedding of your life – don’t show it in your portfolio.

2. There is a fine line between being a versatile photographer and the jack-of-all-trades. You don’t have to specialize but don’t let your portfolio be all over the place either.

3. Show the work you want to get hired to shoot even if you have to shoot self assignments to get it. If you show food in your portfolio, you’ll get asked to shoot food. If you show family portraits in your portfolio you’ll get asked to shoot family portraits. Don’t worry, those jobs you don’t like to shoot but pay you, will still come.

4. Don’t self edit, even the best photographers can get emotionally attached to an image that’s not their best. Everyone needs a good editor on their side and it’s not your mom.

5. Be socially active. Use social media. Talk about yourself and your work. Act like you already have the job. Create a blog and update it often with worthy information. What good is it to have a banging portfolio if no one knows about it?

6. Spend the $10 to get a domain name because an online portfolio with yourname.someothershit.com isn’t worth looking through.

7. If you have an iPhone or any smart phone and you’re not carrying your portfolio on it you’re wasting an opportunity to show your work to everyone you meet.

8. A gallery with more than 18 image is too big and less than 8 is too small.

9. Consider having multiple portfolios or Web sites if you have multiple interests.

10. Update often. Don’t be stale. Keep things fresh.

I'll be taking in Richard Ellis' lecture for the SC Chapter of ASMP at The Art Institute in Charleston South Carolina on Saturday, February 27th. After that I’m going to be taking part in student consultations beginning with a round-table discussion on the basics and techniques of what makes a good portfolio. If you live in the area I hope to see you there.

I'll be teaching a two-part-off-camera flash workshop at The Light Factory in Charlotte NC on April 10th and 17th. First and foremost this workshop is about taking your flash off of your camera and either holding it, putting it on a stand, taping it to a wall or setting it on top of something and sticking stuff in front of it. From there we'll just keep digging deeper. It's about how to get magazine quality photographs with a minimal amount of equipment. It's about why lighting an object isn't much different than lighting a person. It's about lighting landscapes. It's about adding light, mixing light, coloring light, choosing light, shaping light….light light light.

It's about walking into a space and lighting it from the ground up. I come from a background in editorial -assignment photography. I'm usually alone, rarely do I have an assistant and I've almost never been to the place or met the person I'm about to be photographing. I assess the environment, person and/or object and the lighting quickly becomes subject and location-driven. It's about coming up with epic ideas and executing them on the spot.

I've been looking at photography like music lately. I've heard musicians say they can hear the sound in their heads but they're not satisfied until they can get that same sound to come out of the speakers. Well I feel the same way about lighting a photograph. There are times I can see the light in my head and I'm not satisfied until I can see that same light in my prints. As photographers we need to learn to "feel" our light, much in the same way a musician "feels" their music.

No doubt we need to have our technical skills down. A musician doesn't just pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and start producing timeless music without an understanding of the chords or notes, without knowing what A, B, C, D, E, F and G means. A photographer isn't going to pick up a camera and start creating mind-blowing images using flashes without an understanding of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, flash power and flash-to-subject-distance.

And in the same way musicians forget about all those technical aspects of music when they're grooving along and feeling the music, photographers need to be able to put all the technical aspects aside when shooting and groove along as they're feeling their light. You don't think Jimmy Page or Elton John knows each note by name as they are hitting them do you? They feel those notes, they feel what is coming next, they aren't always thinking about it. It's true that not all great musicians can read music and I don't think it's necessary for all great photographers to be able to spit out math equations all day long either. We need to learn our tools and then we need to feel with them.

I understand that can be easier said than done. I cannot tell you how many times I've been trying to find my groove when lighting something and I just keep failing at it miserably. It's during those times I start to doubt myself as a photographer. I think I suck and I have no business trying to put my name out into the industry's wave of professional photographers. But the truth is that not even the best musician can walk into the studio and complete a Grammy-award-winning album in one take. Hours are spent trying to perfect those sounds, tweaking those rifts, changing this and changing that and lighting anything in photography whether it's a person, building, plate of food, whatever, is exactly the same. It takes time, practice, trial and error and in the very end, even the most perfectly-technical lit picture isn't going to resonate with your viewers at all if you aren’t feeling your light.

Disclaimer: I shot the above photograph of Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke at Bonnaroo in 2006 and did not light it. Those are stage lights and I was one of about 50 photographers stepping on each other for the first three songs.

What do you do when you have an assignment in Chattanooga on energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority's 800-megawatts of electricity-generating-capacity expansion? You light it. I drove by the power grid the evening I arrived in town and figured out the sun was going to come up behind the grid in the morning. I don't always have time to location scout before shooting but when I do I try and take advantage of it. I decided to get up early and use the sun to silhouette the grid. I was trying to get an image that showed a massive amount of power. My thinking was that by lighting the rocks using a blue gel it would create a feeling of electricity and energy.

Here’s how it looked on the page:

Here’s a link to the virtual magazine: Southeast Resource

I've been working on an off-camera lighting workshop geared towards subject-and-location-driven lighting, which simply means working with what you have. I took artist Bailie out with me and we scouted a few locations. You can find interesting and cool places to photograph people just about anywhere. This location is not much more than an abandoned warehouse off of a four-lane highway in small town USA. It's bent and broken, grown over and spray painted. Most people would have driven right past it and not given it a second look. But when you start pulling lights out you can turn almost nothing at all into something worth looking at in a matter of minutes. This shot took about 15 minutes start to finish.

The white balance is set to Cloudy and it’s a basic two light set-up using Nikon Speedlights. The main light is set to quarter power with a grid spot, it's four feet above the subjects face and the light stand itself is about three feet away from him.

The second light, the back light, is set to full power with two CTO gels on it and simply stuck in the back of the sliding-metal door. I did have to flag it with a Tupperware top to keep the spill under control on his face. I wanted the separation but not a flood of orange light on his face.

It's all trail and error for the most part. I started with the ambient light. It's about 3 stops under, flat and kind of gray in the open shade. Once I was happy with the ambient light I worked on the back light. One CTO gel wasn't strong enough so I added a second gel. When the light on the inside of the sliding door was rich enough and the exposure was correct I added the subject and placed the main light. While working on the main light I noticed a good bit of the back light spilling over onto his face so I went back and added the gobo. A few more test shots while moving the main light up and down until I was able to control the shadow under his chin and I was ready to shoot. I came down off the dock after about 20 or so shots and started shooting through the overgrown weeds and trees coming out of the parking lot.

Then there is the Editorial Photographer; they create images to educate or illustrate a written story. Think of editorial photography as images used to help tell stories in magazines, newspapers, on-line news or textbooks.

Last you have the Retail Photographer; photos that are commissioned for personal use. Think of retail photography as weddings, family portraits, greeting cards or school portraits.

I had a general idea of where I stood but I wanted to research the types of photographers to get a better idea of exactly where I fell in this long chain of photographer types. I think you'll find that many of these descriptions overlap and you might be one or more at the end of the day.

What type of photographer are you? Get the full list after the jump and feel free to add to it via the comments.

As I travel the country I have a deep interest in photographing structures. Sometimes these are iconic structures and I’m photographing them for a magazine, which is a bonus because I'm getting paid. Sometimes I'm on vacation and I'm dragging my family around waiting for the perfect light, that's how these images were made.

The idea is to get something different than the mass images that are already out there. The Brooklyn Bridge has been around since 1883, it connects Brooklyn to Manhattan and has been photographed from every direction by almost every photographer living in or visiting the area. What could I do that was different? I knew before heading to NYC that I would only be there for one day. I was visiting family in Philadelphia for the New Year and only had a small window of opportunity. The first thing I did in my research was check the weather. I needed sunshine or at least a sunset, no clouds. We picked our day visiting the city based on this factor. I knew I wanted something with no people and saturated color. I also knew I wanted to get close, for me the skyline was not important, I wanted to focus on the bridge itself.

Here are the two shots I came home with. Shot with a Canon G10 in 4 degree weather.

You can get some pretty amazing photographs with a minor amount of inexpensive gear these days. Outside of using my iPhone, which I do often, I travel with my Domke F-5XA bag, Canon G10, (1) Nikon SB-28s, (1) Nikon SB-80, a Nikon SC-17 sync cord and a handful of filters. The key here is carrying the right gear and this little package offers complete control. The G10 can operate in full manual, a must if you want to use strobes. The SC-17 sync cord and the Nikon SB-28 allow me to get the first flash off the camera and the SB-80 slaves allowing me control of the second light. I can get a folding 6-foot-light stand and a 33-inch umbrella in my suitcase and it still fits in the overhead on the plane. This entire setup takes up about as much room as a pair of shoes.

Shot with the Canon G10:

Also shot with the G10

Los Angeles - Signs

Disney Concert Hall

Venice Beach

With the decline in newspapers, magazines subscriptions slipping and the disappearing staff position, you might think it was a bad time to be a vocational photographer. I completely disagree with this way of thinking. It's the future holes needing to be filled that keep me excited about being a photographer. The need for images is as strong as it ever was. Not only is the market there for all types of photography both still and moving, it's expanding into uncharted waters. Don't believe me? Just click the links below and enjoy the future of our industry.

Mag+, a concept video on the future of digital magazines

Outdoor Magazine – Living Magazine Cover

Worlds first video in a paper magazine

Photogene was the very first photo app I bought for my iPhone. Short of having a clone tool, it's very much like having Photoshop on your phone. My favorite features include crop, straighten/rotation, sharpen, levels, contrast, exposure, color balance and saturation, but it has many more. For the power behind this app, it was easy to lay down $2.99 for it.





The second photo app that found its way onto my iPhone was CameraBag. With filters like Helga, Colorcross, Lolo, 1974, 1962, Magazine and Instant, this app is a must if you like toy cameras and/or a fun vintage feel. It’s fast and simple to use and a great introduction into processing with iPhone apps. I recommend that if you only get one photo app, you spend the $1.99 on this one.





I was using Photogene and Camerbag on a regular basis when I was turned on to Photo fx. Photo fx has way too many features to go over in this review but it was the Center Spot and Grain filters that sold me on it. However you'll find plenty of other uses for this app. It must have at least 100 filters packed into it, ranging everywhere from black and white filters to old photo filters, filters that change the lens perspective to filters that change, night vision, fog, color graduations, the list just goes on and on. You can even upgrade this app for more filters and options. It’s another $2.99 app but I couldn’t imagine not having it.





TiltShift Generator is shortchanged in my opinion; a fantastic app that seems to be overlooked all the time. Its prime function for me is using it very much like a tilt-shift lens, being creative with selective focus. But it also has a powerful vignette filter and a great color filter allowing you control over saturation, brightness and contrast. For $0.99 you really can't afford not to have this tool in your iPhone Photo Bag.





Last on my list and used almost every time I process an image, is Best Camera. Find the app here and its community Web site here. This app has several stackable filters that can turn the worst of images into something you want to share with the world. It’s a romantic app with filter names like Jewel, Paris, Slate and Candy, it also allows you to add vignette, crops and borders. While I highly recommend this app and will easily call it one of my favorites, I must admit that I wish it allowed a little more user control on some of its features. Another $2.99 app that I don't think I could live without.

Find me chatting for 6:40 mintues about iPhone Photos here.

Follow my daily iPhone Photos - here

I was asked a few weeks ago if I would present in a series called Talk20 for Hub-Bub at the Showroom in Spartanburg SC. Talk20 is basically talking for six minutes and 40 seconds about a creative topic. You get 20 slides and 20 seconds to talk about each slide. I choose to yap about the iPhone as a suitable camera in the professional photographer's bag. It seemed appropriate; I've been shooting them like crazy lately. I'm not too sure about the video guy's steady-hand skills, it's a little shaky but it gets better about the 1:30 point or so.