Should photography just stay a love obsession or a career ?

This picture was an add in after the fact.  I had all ready written a long drawn out blog post that turns into one of my normal rants. It really should have been sweet and to the point. I digress again, pardon me. This pic is from the Nikon D800.  I've done some editing and frequency separation and skin color toning on this. I'm in the process now of trying to find a workflow to use regularly, as my workflow is usually all over the map 








Hello all. its been quite a while since my last post.  To keep with the theme of things the d800 is doing great.  Since the purchase I'm starting to learn a lot more about dynamic range and recovery.  I've seen and now understand about shooting to the right and being able to save a picture.  I've also decided to switch gears.  I believe my photography may start to switch more so towards family and friends. Trust me the beautiful ladies are great, but its not really what I think I want to do, or what I really want to express in my portraiture.  I need something else.  I'm not quite sure what it is I'm after but when I find it I will post and share :-) . 

     Also, Photography is great, nice fantastic a passion, but one that does not pay the bills.  I recently read an article on Scott Kelby's site by one of his guest bloggers, Ron Martinsen.  In a nutshell Ron talks about his experience and having spoken with full time photogs who find it hard as hell to make a living in this industry. So, quitting your full time gig to pursue a career in photography may not be the best idea.

      5 years ago you couldn't tell me that I wasn't going to ditch my job and become the next Zack Arias, David Hobby or countless other photographers.   However, after countless failed model mayhem attempts, cancelled photo shoots and yes paying jobs I've realized that this is probably not what I would want to do in a full time capacity.  The paying jobs of course are the things that interest me not, weddings, events,  baby showers etc... These all seem to be the money makers but its not what I want.  Its also not steady money.  So 5 years one marriage and a few grays later, I need to be realistic.  I don't have the time on my side to continue to pursue photography so aggressively.  I have a family bills, and other things to make me crazy.  I implore no one to give up on their dreams, but try to look at the balance of where you are in life and where you want to go. By no way am I giving up but I do need to weigh my opportunity cost of photography vs my stable job (stable at the moment anyway). I did say job.  At this point it pays the bills, and quite regularly I might add.  Some may say that if you feel that way, then you really do need to go all in on photography but at what cost? 

     I think the above paragraph speaks to answer the question of the overly saturated photographer/photography market.  Everyday there are a few 100 entering the market, and the next day a few more are leaving.  There are people who enter much like myself full on, but things happen, shit happens, life happens.  And I think overtime photography for most people who lack the skill, time or duration to see it through and learn the craft will also be washed away when the tide comes in.  That tide will be different things for different people but it will come.  I myself have become obsessed with photography, If I were to count the man hours of videos, books blogs, b&H visits shoots, etc... I should be well on my way to working on a masters degree in photographic arts.  But I will continue to shoot because it's something that I love, but chasing the big white one I will no longer as there are greater things at risk.  If the success or recognition does come in some way shape or form, I will welcome it, but take it with a grain of salt. 

     As usual I've gone off on a rant again. Thankfully for the most part no one reads this blog :-) but again its a cathartic experience for me.   As usual keep shooting learning and practicing.

D800 -Review Part-1

Hello all, its been quite a while since my last blog.  I have purchased the d800 since then and have spent some quality time with it.  Man, first off I'd like to start off by saying this camera is not for everyone.  First off if this is your first blog post of mine that your reading or have happened to stumble upon, I mostly shoot people/portrait photography.  What does that mean as far as the d800 is concerned?  A crap load of detail.  Which is great if your a retoucher or love seeing every little flaw and pore in the skin of your subject.  This took my by quite a surprise when using the camera for my first shoot.  I was amazed at how far I could zoom in  while in Lightroom and Photoshop and still see pure skin before hitting the pixel level grid, and even at the grid level in some instances I'm still able to make out skin.  This is great when dabbling with dodging and burning when I pretend to be a professional retoucher.  If you shoot landscapes or architectural photography I believe this camera is for you hands down.  If your a run and gun type of portrait photographer this camera is probably not for you, but if your  a self proclaimed  n,a,s head like myself, you know that you probably really really, don't need this camera but you'll find an excuse to get it. I would suggest at this point looking into a used d3s, d700, or the new d600.

Down side

The downside so far has been the upside, which would be the extreme level of detail.  Hey, looking back at my d700 there were times when I could get away with doing little to know retouching on a model, but the d800 will not work that way.  In person, in front of me the model looked fabulous; however, the extreme amount of detail in the file proved to be my undoing.  I believed we unmasked flaws and pores she didn't even know she had.  This camera if you so dare to step up to the challenge will call upon you to up your post processing skills to take full advantage of the files and to make your clients happy.  I plan on doing some d700 to d800 comparisons as time and subjects allow to show some visual representation of what I'm discussing.  But at this point one shoot is not enough to give anything more than a general opinion on the camera.  I will need to do a lot more work and report back to you guys/gals.

Disk Space

  This section will be short and sweet.  on my first shoot out I was happy as a pig in a blanket to finally have a dual card camera, coming from the single slot d700. However, that quickly changed when I filled up my 8gb sd card(setup to capture jpegs)  and only had a gig left on on 8gb cf-card   ( setup to shoot raw).  I believe I had almost 14 gigs after the shoot altogether.  My gig is a terabyte but averaging that much a shoot would surely send me to the poor house, or at least have me appear on an episode of storage disk hoarders.  So you will most definitely want to slow down when shooting and chose carefully the images you take and plan on keeping.

Vertical Grip

After much debate about spending an obscene amount of money on a grip, I went with a third party option.  So far the grip seems ok. (Flash Point D12 Magnesium Grip )  The grip can be purchased from the link above.  I am in no way associated with Adorama, just thought posting the link could be helpful.  So, the grip actually feels great.  Like I've heard others say besides the softness of I believe the af button or the back focus button and the clickly sound of the main and sub command dials I really don't notice much of a difference between this grip and my nikon-made d700 grip. 

Well, that's it for now  But I hope to drop updates in the coming months on my photo shoots and adventures with this camera.  So please like always whatever camera you shoot please keep on shooting and learning.  I'll leave off with a few pics that I've captured so far.