Aug
03
Please pardon the site while it is under construction. Coming soon will be an image gallery with links to where my images can be licensed.
Jan
19
Storm clouds are looming on the web!
Yesterday many sites on the Internet – Wikepia as the prime example – decided to go dark as a protest against so-called free speech in the proposed SOPA (the U.S. Senate’s Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA ( the Protect-Intellectual Property Act). And millions of gullible people are believing what they have to say i.e. that all information on the Internet should be free.
I could just as easily say that I believe that all food at McDonalds should be free. Would you believe me and petition for it? Producing images to license as stock has cost me thousands of dollars in professional education and equipment over the years. My images are the product of my business and belong to me. They may not be downloaded or copied without a fee being paid. Taking something that does not belong to you in the “real world” is called theft and could land you in prison, so why is there a double standard of morality on the web? Why is there such an outcry that websites would have to take responsibility for stealing and/or for accepting stolen work?
So,why have I almost obliterated this image with copyright information? Well, I am protesting the anti SOPA and anti PIPA protests . It’s all about THEM, folks! Those huge Internet concerns are themselves making a huge profit out of making sure my hard-earned work can be given away for free. It’s all about those companies making tons of money at the expense of not only large film and music companies, but also at the expense of millions of hard working small business people like myself. Those who are protesting are the ones who are going to profit big time by convincing the unsuspecting public that this is all about free speech!
It’s not about free speech versus censorship. It’s not about old versus new. It’s about the seemingly old-fashioned idea of right versus wrong.
Matthew 10:10 …. for the worker is worth his keep. (NIV)
Nov
15
The Isle of Skye is the most hauntingly beautiful place on earth, and although I grew up in Scotland I had never taken the time to visit it. You know how it is! When something is practically in your own back yard, you have a tendency to say you will go there sometime!
Sometime for me finally came when I brought my husband to visit Scotland for the first time, and I was able to see my homeland through the eyes of a tourist. We both fell in love with Skye and have visited it on several occasions now with stock photography in mind.
As a stock photographer, I am always looking for photo opportunities wherever I go. Travel photography has been pretty hard hit in the declining stock photography business, as it no longer makes economic sense for most photographers to spend thousands of dollars on a trip and sometimes models too, when many times the images are licensing for such small fees.
So, what’s a photographer to do? What I do, is look at my own vicinity in Florida through the eyes of a tourist. Who better to take the travel shots of a location than those who live there? I live a mile from the Atlantic Ocean with its miles and miles of beautiful beaches, and downtown Jacksonville and also Saint Augustine are each twenty minutes from home. The Golden Isles of Georgia are just an hour away. All it costs to get there is the cost of gas.
So, no longer do I say “I’ll go there sometime,” but whenever I have the chance, I shoot travel photography close to home!
Oct
24
Order Prints HereIt has been over three months since I last posted here. Around that time both of my computers failed on the same day. (How likely is that to happen?) The failures were not related to each other, but were two separate incidences on my two work computers. As you can imagine, my routine was severely disrupted for a long time, so posting here was not my top priority as I worked to edit a backlog of images.
Over the years I have created fine art images based on my photography using Photoshop and Corel Painter. I have always enjoyed the post production side of photography, but until recently it never occurred to me to create some digital art from scratch. A few days ago I needed a break from the constant editing, so I opened a blank page in Photoshop and created some abstract art. I had so much fun doing it, that I have decided that it will be a part of my weekly routine from now on.
The creativity I unleashed was priceless. The change from my usual routine was like a much needed rest and by the time I was finished I had conjured up countless new ideas for photo shoots. And besides, maybe I can make a sale or two on Fineartamerica!
Jul
02
It’s Fourth of July weekend again and photographers both professional and amateur all over the United States will be preparing to catch the pyrotechnic display on their cameras. For many, the results will be hit or miss as they expect their cameras to do all the thinking for them. For others though, results are more predictable because they have a method which seems to work every time. Following are a few simple steps you can take to make sure that you capture the best of what you see.
1. Place your camera on a tripod
2. Turn OFF Image Stabilization – if left on it will have the opposite effect and cause camera shake results
3. Set ISO to 200
4. Set f-stop at f16
5. Set speed to B (Bulb) mode
6. Use a remote switch
7. Hold aperture open for a few seconds at a time so that you can capture more than one burst on a single frame
That’s it! Happy July 4th!
