Month: March 2008

Stanley works to make your job easier

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Stanley usually provides a DVD-R immediately following your event. The ID information is printed directly on the inkjet-writable DVD-R, which is more archival than a paper label. The data includes the name and date of your event plus Stanley’s contact information, making it easy to locate images later.

Stanley keeps a duplicate DVD-R on file as an off-premises backup for you. Everyone should make their backup as well.

Each image is a high-resolution JPEG. Usage rights of the photos are negotiated before the assignment.

For most editorial assignments, photo identification is embedded with the image. This is helpful when writing cut-lines for your newsletter or matching the photo with the person in a story.

One of Stanley’s clients has 500 plus new portraits made every year. Many of the faces are new. The office staff uses the embedded identification to match the portraits to bios. This helps those who have not met the new people to match the person with the name.

Below is an example of this when you use Photoshop to view the images. Go to the menu option Menu>File Info to pull down the box.

Kid Rock signs an album cover for Alisha Mullen of Point Pleasant, WV, at the Waffle House restaurant in Duluth, Georgia, on Tuesday, March 11, 2008, for local non-profit charity Nicholas House, Inc., a homeless Family shelter in Dekalb County. (AP Photo/Stanley Leary)

The above example should interest you if you have many photographs taken each year and have had trouble locating a particular photo. This ID information is recognizable by most image archiving software such as Cumulus. The file information box of Photoshop is known as IPTC for short.

As you can see, the information is the same. Since Stanley has done this work for you, after setting up the software like MediaDex to recognize IPTC, you only need to drag the folder from the DVD-R, which Stanley provided to you, into the database software and let it ingest the images. You do not need to add any more information. The event’s name is searchable; you can find people by searching the caption for words.

You can also use services online like PhotoCore. This provides a live, searchable database for you to use. Your photographers can upload from anywhere worldwide, and you can determine access by creating accounts for photographers, designers, and clients. Look at some of Stanley’s examples here.

With this service provided by Stanley, you can find a photo within seconds. If you save all the images on a server, the artist only needs to click to place the picture into their design. It only takes a second.

You can use the information printed on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer, and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Use the information printed on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Look on the DVD-R to locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

To locate a project, place the DVD-R on the computer and just drag the photo from the Database straight into your document.

Today we must be good stewards of our budget and resources. Since Stanley has completed most of the data entry for you, he has saved you hours of work that translates into savings.

There is more than meets the eye in Stanley’s photos. He has provided you with the images you need and increase their value because of the wealth of information he has provided about those images.

The ease of use, the ability to quickly locate a single photo in your collection, and the in-depth information about that photo all located together make a photo shoot by Stanley more valuable.

Yes, Stanley indeed does work to make your job easier.

 

Seeing Eye to Eye Isn’t Always Best

by Stanley LearyPhotography

In Psychology 101 we learn the value of relating to others at eye level. Many books on photography discuss unusual angles such as a worm’s eye or a bird’s eye view. Such perspectives can create interesting photos, but there is much more to the choice of the angle of view than just making a nice picture. Indeed, the angle from which you photograph a person sends a message to the viewer about that person. Do you know what message you’re sending?

The three letters in the illustrations below stand for Parent, Adult and Child. If you photograph another adult at their eye level the camera (audience) is, of course, on the same level with your subject. This adds dignity to the subject.

 

On the other hand, if you shoot down at the subject you place the audience above or over the subject much the same way a parent is above or over a child. This makes the audience feel responsible for the subject. We often see photos of starving children in Africa photographed this way.

Lower the camera angle and you reverse the camera (audience) to the subject relationship. This “shot from below” adds prominence to the subject. It increases the stature of the subject and makes them more authoritative. (Don’t use flash from below a face unless you want to create the look of a monster.)

To carry the audience back to their childhood, place the camera on the floor and crawl around photographing a child at the child’s eye level.

When photographing an expert, like a research scientist, keep the camera at eye level, not below. The eyeball-to-eyeball angle helps to humanize or “warm up” the expert.

Photographing people using this simple PAC principle allows you to make statements about who they are, not just what they look like.

Like everything else in photography, knowing more than ƒ-stops and shutter speeds will make you a better photographer. And remember, seeing eye-to-eye isn’t always best.