NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHER’S BLOG

They do often go the wrong way, and I know two people who were hit and sent to the hospital.  Nevertheless, still a good night subject for yours truly.  This was shot by panning with the bike as it went by.  On the other hand, I once read that the most dangerous job in NYC was bike messenger.  I always thought they’d make a good subject for a documentary.  The only film I know about them was with Kevin Bacon (Quicksilver) which not only features Kevin Bacon (not your typical bike messenger) but takes place in San Francisco and was an awful movie.

I almost became a bike messenger at one point in my life when I couldn’t think of anything else to do and was out of money (I was about 22) but was talked out of it by an uncle who got me a job as a can carrier in a film processing lab.  (There’s a Jerry Lewis film about that).  It was a very simple job, but like Jerry Lewis I didn’t fare well at it.  I would be given a stack of big pancake like silver cans to bring from one place to another through dark underground tunnels.  I spoiled some film one day when I tripped and one of the cans opened.  That didn’t get me fired because it was a union job and my uncle knew the head of the local.

After a week or so, my eyes got used to the dark tunnels and I was able to make my way around with the teetering stacks of film cans, but then I opened a door to a processing room that had a flashing red light which I didn’t see since the cans were stacked so high, and that got me sent to the union leaders office which was a gigantic office.  You opened the door and had to travel a few miles to get to the guys desk.  And sitting behind the desk was the biggest guy (outside of a circus) I had ever seen in a suit that was bursting at the seams chatting on the phone.  He just looked up at me finally still talking into the phone and beckoned with big beefy hands to me:  Hey kid, you had betta watch your step.  If not for your uncle you’d be outa here.

Yes sir.

And then he went back to his phone conversation.

What I remember most about the job was the dispatcher who was a a fat ugly woman who cursed like a sailor and tried to pinch me every time I walked by her desk, which was often and I was always with the cans.  A million years later in another life I remember her name (Rita) and her eyes which had turned into mole eyes after decades in the dark.  The jobs some people had there.  The big job was to check that the colors were right in film reproductions.  There was a room with several projectors that were playing movies and t.v. shows upside down, hour after hour.

During the week I was there, they had a big order to make copies of the show Bonanza for the Japanese market, and for nearly a week there were eight guys in a big room (they all smoked), each watching upside down episodes of Bonanza with Japanese subtitles (also upside down) and the sound off looking for color errors in the prints.  Can you imagine that?  Like some sort of torture.

I can’t imagine I was there for more than a few weeks, but can’t remember whether I was eventually fired or left.  Probably the latter.  Yes, I left because I remember Rita making fun of me for quitting.  From there I got my job as a busboy at the City Squire Hotel.  That’s another story that has nothing to do with bike messengers, though it still involved carrying large amounts of flat circular objects from one spot to another.

What I remember from that job was that the short order cook was usually drunk, and although he never knew who the plates were going to, he would randomly spit in the food.  But that’s a story for another day.

One of the coolest things about upgrading to the blackberry – and I guess this is true with most smartphones – is that when my cable connection goes down, as it is right now, I can just plug it in via the USB cord, and now I’m back online through the blackberry with a pretty decent connection. I can work on the site etc. or write up what’s been going on lately as I am now without the Time Warner internet connection.

It doesn’t go out often, but when it does, it’s great to have this as a backup connection.

- The cocktail party at the Essex house for the winning photographers was supposed to be today, but I just got an email that it’s been postponed for a few days, which is good because I really did need to get a decent set of clothes together and maybe even get a hair cut before the wine and cheese are carted out. I was thinking of hiring an escort to be my guest. I had this fantasy – I think it’s a fantasy of arriving with a tall statuesque blonde on my arm a la James Bond. I admit, that I do have a wild fantasy life. Of course, she doesn’t have to be blonde – just so long as she’s what we used to call a knock-out. I would stroll in, and present her as my assistant, and my muse a la Pygmalion. I actually looked into the proposition – and the pretty woman fantasy is pretty costly, though I did find a shot of someone who looked like Julia Roberts – her screen name is Crystal Gems.

You get these ideas sometimes when you’ve been stuck in the house tweaking web sites for too long.

Actually – I do know a knock out – but she’s a niece twice removed (I think that’s what she is) who I’ll call R.B. I wonder whether I should give her a call. She’s not only gorgeous, but sort of exotic looking since her mother is from Sri Lanka, and her father is from a small cattle ranch in Texas and looks a lot like Rock Hudson. The last time I talked to her, she was studying to be a doctor, but I think she dropped out of school to study acting. Yeah – she’d be perfect. She’s really photogenic. I’ve got a shot of her somewhere (on film) maybe I can find it later. Anyway, hanging on my arm won’t do any good unless I can find me some clean clothes and shave and get a haircut which is asking a lot.

Well, whatever.

I wonder if she’d do it. Of course, my looks are nothing to write home about. Maybe it would be better to hire a male escort to pretend to me. I could give him a camera, and have the two of them make a grand entrance, and take pictures… that would give me just as much pleasure as actually being there. You know, we work so hard to make beautiful things – and it would be fitting if we could make a fitting entrance.

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My sister called to say that her front license plate had been stolen two days ago, and she had gotten two tickets since then, and would I like to go up to the 125th street motor vehicles department with her.  She had all her paperwork in order, and she didn’t think it would take long.

It was around noon.  First mistake, on the way up she decided to take the FDR.  Clogged.  We just sat in traffic for a half-hour wondering what the hold up was.  Turned out that the 125th street exit was closed for construction.

So we went further.  Got off and made our way back.  And somehow, found a spot on 125th street.

She had made a dinky strange black and white plate which she attached to the front of the car, but which hadn’t fooled anyone and we were wondering if she’d get another ticket while we were in motor vehicles.

And then the wait began.  Rows of well-sat on wooden benches, and flashing numbers like in a bakery, but we couldn’t figure out for a long time what the meaning of the numbers were.  Her ticket said C606 and we speculated about what the “C” meant.  Although they had room for about 20 employees, only six were at work.  And we just sat there for at least an hour and a half, and finally I got up and said I was going to wander around downstairs.

Eventually, about an hour later, she called me to say that she was finished, but that they wanted her to return with the license plate which was still on the back of the car.  But we didn’t have a screwdriver, and the thing was rusted in.  We took out every possible thing from our pockets that might work to unscrew it, but after almost breaking her mailbox key, she looked at her insurance card in the glovebox (which they also wanted) and realized it was expired.  No, her insurance wasn’t expired, but the card was an old one.

Now what.

We’re dead now, I said.

Yep, she said.  Dead meat.

So what should we do.  Try and go back to the house, get the screwdriver and the up-to-date insurance card.  Then go through traffic again.

She kept complaining that she had asked the guy on the phone what she would need to bring and she had brought everything they told her.

I just nodded.  And you’re surprised that they didn’t give you the right information.

But I asked them like three times if there was anything else I needed to bring.

I know.  But this is the motor vehicles department.  You expected the correct information.  C’mon.  No use sitting here, let’s head back.

When we got back to the home neighborhood, we stopped at a hardware store and bought a phillips head screwdriver and removed the back license plate.  I had a flash of what might be genius.

Alright, give me the plate, I said.  I took it and walked into a small copy place.  I handed the crumpled plate to the guy and said, make a color copy of this.

He gave me a strange look.  A long thoughtful strange look.  And then took the plate and stuck it on the photo copier and returned with a color print of the license plate.

I paid two dollars.  Thanked him, and returned to give the color copy to my sister.  So that’s what is on the front of the car now.  I looked at it, and unless you look very closely, it is hard to see that it’s a fake plate (it’s pasted onto a piece of stiff mat board).

I think, that may be breaking another law – such as it is illegal to use photocopies of plates which is a demeanor or whatever, but so long as it doesn’t rain, I think she’ll be alright until Monday.

One of the greatest abbreviations for me (I’ve been using it a lot lately) is ca. (circa). I suppose it is from the latin root for circle – and it jives with my take on it which is around. I try to remember who I went with, if anyone, or what was going on in my life at the time, and I can arrive at some approximation of the date. But no, I don’t have exact dates, and I don’t think it matters anyway. Though whenever I’m thumbing through photography books, this “ca.” comes up a lot. Of course, once the switch was made to digital you know the date down to the second so long as you remembered to set the clock in the camera.

At any rate – if you’d like to see what I’ve been adding to the photo store, here’s the link to what I’ve called recent prints which is a misnomer since the prints go back a long way. I guess I could call it, “Just Arrived” as if I were getting these shots from someone else. And it does feel like that sometimes. Did I really take that shot? Most of the time I can barely remember what camera I was using, unless it was something in the square format. Then I know it was either the Rollei or the Mamiya 6 (man that was an expensive camera). Was that the one they called the Texas Leica?

It really does seem like the film shots were from a different lifetime. I am happy that I’m around at this time – during the switch to digital. No, it doesn’t make me nostalgic, or sad – because frankly – from the time I was a kid – I enjoyed experimenting with technology. I had my own tester for radio tubes (radio tubes!) and could fix most radios when a tube burnt out.

And if you’ve been reading the blog for a while you know that I jumped at the chance to buy the Kaypro computer when it came out rather than the first PC which had already been introduced at the time. The Kaypro ran an OS called CPM. Now that was another lifetime for sure.

And I still enjoy reading about the new stuff that’s coming out.

Today Google announced that they would have a new operating system (Chrome OS) based on the browser idea – but I think it will be a long time (at least a few years) before it can run anything like Photoshop, unless Photoshop is already working on a version for Chrome. But I wouldn’t doubt that if anyone could do it properly, it would be Google. I know they’re already experimenting with kernels for handling graphics. Anyway, they’re going to introduce the first version for netbooks. That’s another idea that goes back a long way (Larry Ellison?) of Oracle. I don’t think I can wait for a version of Chrome on a netbook that can run Lightroom – but who knows. I also read that Adobe is working on an “action” based version of Photoshop. But I believe you will always need a disk in the thing; or if not a disk, some sort of permanent storage system. You just aren’t going to be able to download the program you need each time you start up the netbook unless it’s lightweight like the Open Office programs. But I’m sure that anything I’ve thought of – the Google guys have long since figured out.

And the idea of giving MS a run for their money – oh I love it. They’ve already got some version of Chrome on the Pre-Palm phone – don’t they?

I will set off on my road trip to New Hampshire with dad tomorrow morning.  First I head out to Great Neck (sister driving me) to meet him and then we drive to a small camp in New Hampshire where he’s staying for a few weeks (that’s a long story).  I wonder if I’ve ever been to N.H.

Being dramatic, I have the idea that this would make a perfect play — confined space for six hours, and the old father and son routine.  We’ve bonded, unbonded, and re-bonded so many times that I have enough material for two Russian novels.  But for all I know, it will be non-eventful.  That’s life.  I can’t ever figure out what’s going to happen.  That’s also probably what I enjoy most about photography and what has kept me interested all these years.  It’s the things that surprise me that are most satisfying to photograph.  And at least in New York – there is an unending stream of surprises.

I’ll probably be out of communication for a day or two (no wifi or cells work at the camp). I decided to bring my infrared camera with me.  That’s the most fun part of most trips for a camera person – sitting there with the equipment figuring out what to bring.  Make sure the extra batteries are charged.  Or if you’re smart, bring the charger.  Eventually, I’m going to pick up a netbook – probably the Wind – for trips and for workshops.  It will run Lightroom, and that means I can have it in the field, and transfer images over during a workshop for reviewing anywhere.   It’s lightweight and I’ve only read good things from other photographers who are using it for field work.

Back to N.H.  I’ll be in a house by a lake, and I imagine that infrared should be good for this location.

The return trip:  two planes back switching over in Boston.  I haven’t flown since 9/11 – so all I know is that I should wear clean socks.  Everything is in one camera bag.  I  travel light and hate having to check anything in.   At least I don’t need to worry about taking HIE film through security scanners.  Last time I used HIE (no longer made) I put it through the scanners at the Top of the Rock and had several frames ruined. I remember trying to explain that the film was very sensitive to everything – and that the security guys had no idea what infrared film was.  And now Kodachrome is no longer being made.

“Join us Miles.  Just go to sleep.  When you wake up, you’ll see how great it is.”

Anyway, I’m  looking forward to getting away from the city for a while.

Talk to you when I get back.

I usually have Turner Classic Movies playing, and no matter what’s going on in the world, they don’t interrupt the program or run crawls over the movies.  My sister usually calls me if something important happens.  On Sept 11th, I got the call from her to turn on the news.

Yesterday, she called to say, put on the news and I saw that Michael Jackson was dead.  I watched the news for a while.  I was never a fan, so it didn’t have much effect on me, but I’m always curious to see how cable stations can stretch this stuff out when they know next to nothing other than that he had died of a heart attack, and how old he was, and that he was the self-proclaimed king of pop.

But I did pick up a few other facts while watching MSNBC.  One correspondent compared him to Mozart, because both had achieved fame at such a young age.  I found this comparison wacky because Mozart wasn’t much of a dancer.   I don’t think he can be compared with MJ in terms of the numbers of people who bought his sheet music.  Nevertheless, they both had troubled lives.

I also learned that MJ was as great or greater than Jackie Robinson, in terms of crossing the color line with his music.  I didn’t know that either. I always thought he had crossed the color line by getting whiter and whiter.  But obviously, I’m no expert on that aspect of his life.

And I also found out that he had sold more product than Elvis ever did – and that he – not Elvis was the real king.

What else did I hear.  Oh, although he had his issues with children and later with parenting (hanging one kid out the window), that would all be forgotten in the coming years, and his legacy of great hits would remain.

I learned was that Michael was  a better dancer than Fred Astaire.  Or at least his equal.  I can’t comment on that, since they had very different styles.  I did read somewhere on the web that Fred had a routine where he grabbed his crotch with a white glove.  Unfortunately, the studio system wouldn’t allow that.  So we may never know how great Fred could have been.

I quickly turned back to TCM which was playing La Strada (also about an entertainer), and although Fellini didn’t begin making films until he was in his forties, I’d still have to give him the nod in terms of genius.  Of course my taste is mired in the past, and I guess I’ll have to keep the movie channel going for a few days, until they finish chewing this cud.

The other thing they kept harping on, was that Jackson was taken away in a “plain white coroners van.”

I’m not sure what they expected – but they Oberman was disappointed that Michael wasn’t transported for his final journey in  some Egyptian set piece from a Cecille B. Demille picture.  Oberman repeated that it was ironic that Jackson was carted away like anyone else in this plain white van.  Finally, one correspondent, struggling to get out a memorable Edward Murrow type line said: well, at last he’s found peace.  That is a comforting thought that can be applied to all of us when we travel to the distant land from which no entertainer returns.

Personally, I was more shocked by the hanging death of David (Kung Fu) Carradine which I didn’t hear about until two weeks later.  Well, now they’re all Bound for Glory.

They’ve been doing a documentary on Matt Weber for a pretty long time, and a few months ago I ended up on film because i was having breakfast with Matt on the east side. I was “on”  that morning and they decided they wanted to do more with me.  So they’ll arrive this morning at my apt. at 10:30 a.m.

HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT

Only problem: I’m in a miserable mood. I’ve had a bad toothache for a few days and have been applying a concoction of Vodka, Orajel and red-pepper to it every night; and haven’t been sleeping well and yesterday I was eating something and the back molar cracked in half.  One half fell out, the other half is still dangling there.

Since I’m phobic of dentists (and doctors) I didn’t just make an appointment when I should have; and even now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just pull the thing out myself.

The house has been filled with cartons lately from a couple of mat deliveries, so I  got up early and got rid of them; but I don’t feel much like cleaning up (do i ever?) and I’m thinking I’ll just let them in and see the place as it really is.  Yes, the cameras will be turned on me and my abode, and there is no plot that I know of so I’ll have to suck it up and see if I can return to the more “up” Beckerman that they saw last time.

They sort of  picked a bad day (for me) to do this,  plus, although I’ve had a few sales lately, between the tooth, not having dental insurance, and knowing what it will cost to fix this tooth (it’s a little bit more complicated than I’m making it because I have a BRIDGE).  and it is a Bridge Too Far.  which is to say that part of the bridge is attached to that dangling  molar.

If I were on the other side of the camera – I wouldn’t care about the tooth, would I? No.  I have photographed people in the most dire conditions. so now it’s my turn.

UPDATE: A FEW DAYS LATER.  MY TOOTH WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF TODAY.  UGH.

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I never could figure out how to do that “taxi whistle.”  But this shot gives me a clue.  It reminds me of the assignment I was given by an old friend: photograph people hailing cabs.  Eventually, he said, you’d have enough for a gallery show.  I’ve got about ten good ones so far (after 6 years).   Why he was so interested in shots of people hailing cabs (although he was especially interested in women hailing cabs) I have no idea.  But I guess that just about any human activity, if you shoot it enough, becomes (maybe) interesting when you put them all together.

This sort of project, which I’ve tried many times, is something that doesn’t ever appeal to me.  A while back I spent about a year photographing people on escalators whenever I could.  I never did see the point of sticking them together in a collection.  My own feeling is to simply take out the best ones, and stick with that.  But the by-product of these projects is good for me – because it sometimes gives me something to do when my own creative juices need some sort of jolt to get going.  I get excited and start thinking of different ways of doing escalator shots, or people hailing cabs, or whatever.  And I do get some sort of pleasure out of while I’m working on the project.  After a while, it gets to be a bore.

The other thing that gives me a jolt is simply changing lenses.  This is with the 50mm, and as I’ve mentioned before, for me it’s a whole new perspective after only using the 30mm for a year or so.  And of course, the final super jolt is getting a new camera, or changing to infrared or — well you get the point.  I need these changes sometimes to get going.

Speaking of new cameras – I do go back to the B&H site fairly often to look at the Mark II.  $2500.  And the body is almost always out-of-stock.  I think that will be the next jolt, but I need some sort of financial windfall first.  I have a few possible prospects, that if they come through could put me in the Mark II ballpark.

Mike sends me this snippet with link to the article…  I like the part where “the audience gasps.”

Frankly, I don’t understand the whole 645 ratio.  The full frame dSLR is the same ratio as the Leica M or any 35mm camera.  “And he has the images processed to look like Tri-x.”  Yeah, right.  The world – she’s filled with so much hype, so much misinformation.  Give me a break.  I just got word from HCB’s ghost who has been haunting my apartment for the last few nights.  He confided in me that if he were to begin shooting now, he’d be using a digital p/s.  He says my article about using the dSLR for street photography was pretty good – tres bon – but that it’s not the camera – it’s the eye behind the camera.  I think that’s what he said, my French not being what it once was.

And Joel Meyerowitz is printing on an HP.  I mean – when the big boys do these switches all of a sudden the new technology is given the okay.  Soon you’ll see them in print ads with their endorsements of the new-fangled equipment.  Things that the worker bees knew about years ago.

And just so you know – I’ve seen Salgado’s prints when they were in NY, and they are lovely.  I don’t mean to say anything about him, or Meyerowitz who I am also partial to.  It’s just the idea of the audience of fans finding out that Dylan has gone electric.  Good golly.  How could he.  He’s betrayed something.  Get over it.

Oh – so here’s the snippet and the link to the article that caused the gasps.  What would make me gasp would be if Salgado decided to use a view camera.  There is a good point in there about the problems with film going through all the security stuff these days; and it is a comfortable feeling for me – even when I just go to Top of the Rock or wherever I’m subjected to having the camera scanned that I don’t need to worry about fogged film.

and now comes news that Sebastiao Salgado is using Canon:

One of his friends suggested that he try digital, which at first he resisted. However, he did try a medium format 645 back and was quite impressed by the quality. Since the medium format back setup was a bit large, he eventually settled on the Canon full frame (1Ds-something?). However, he still uses it like in the film days: his assistant makes contact sheets for him, and his camera is modified to give the same 645 ratio he is used to. He also has the images processed to look like Tri-X. For prints, a lab converts the data into a 645 negative and prints using traditional darkroom process!

Found at http://rfman.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/an-evening-with-sebastiao-salgado/

I awoke this morning with the idea of featuring auctions on my site. No – not eBay which never did work very well for me – but auctions that were hosted in WordPress and that I could do without paying eBay fees. And so I did a search for wordpress and auctions and came across an auction Plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites that are running Linux (i.e. it’s not going to work if your site is hosted on wordpress.com like this blog is).

There’s a lot of work that goes into making a widget like this and I gladly paid $30 for it, although I wasn’t sure if it would work or not on my server. I can feel that the guys that have been working on it have done a good job, and know what they’re doing – but it is still missing some features – but nothing that I would call a show stopper. I also don’t have a good way to test it, other than buying something. So as an introduction to the auction widget (available at http://www.wpauctions.com/ ) I put up two of the most popular prints in 8 x 10 size where the first bid is about half price; I’m hoping that’s enough of an incentive to get someone to give the thing a try and see how it works.

If there’s a particular print you’d like to get for 1/2 price (assuming you’re the only one that bids on it) – let me know. It could be in the blog, or from the store. Of course, I should really put up the Skating Rink since that’s become popular after winning the contest. Maybe I will – but I’d rather put up some prints that I like a lot, that have never sold. Maybe I’ll do that tonight.

If you do install the plugin, expect some issues – but I got very fast responses from the developers at this address: error issues.

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Yes, I won first place in the Central Park Winter Photo Contest for the Skating Rink photo.  Here’s a link to the photo and announcement.

The winning photo.

And here are the judges.

Frankly, after finding out that I was in the top 3 finalists a few weeks ago, and after submitting a bunch of legal stuff – I didn’t hear from them.  Maybe the announcement went into my spam box.  But this morning, just for the heck of it, I did a search on their site and sure enough – there was the announcement.  I think I’ll get some lox this morning to celebrate.

Introduction

If you are a street photographer, you probably won’t find anything new in this post; and you’ll find a few things to disagree with.  I do concentrate on the current DSLR camera and skip over the Leica M since I figure if you’re a street photographer using the M camera you already have your own techniques down.  But if street photography is new for you, and you are wondering about what sort of digital camera has the most useful features, and how to get over your initial fear of taking pictures of strangers in a strange land – then you may find useful techniques, both psychological and technical in this post.  But fair warning – a seasoned street photographer will be likely to fall asleep while perusing this post.   Someone who is just starting to do street photography may be overwhelmed by the amount information.

This is part of a trilogy of articles about street photography.  The first one simply tried to define street photography.  This baby gets into practical ways to do it.  And the third one – the most difficult one – will attempt to describe what makes a good street shot.  [Editor: Good luck with that Mr. Beckerman]

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES

In my previous article about street photography, I did my best to define what it is. In this article I write about useful camera techniques for street photography.

When you’re getting started the challenge is overcoming the fear of taking pictures of strangers. Since telephoto lenses aren’t normally used in street photography, how can you stand a few feet from your subject, put the camera to your eye, focus, and click the shutter without getting nervous? A good street photographer is not only fearful in the beginning (this is a good sign of being sensitive) but they also don’t want to do anything which will change the how the subject is behaving.

With practice, you can overcome your reluctance to photograph strangers as well as learn techniques which will help you get better candid shots. One word of caution – it can be addictive. If you’ve been doing street photography for a while, it may effect which seat you choose in a restaurant, or which side of the street you decide to walk on. When you walk out of your house, you may notice that one side of the street is in shade, the other side is sunny. Which side of the street you choose to walk on may be influenced by years of street shooting.

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Since I’m always writing in disgust when I have a problem with the 7800 or the 4800, I thought I’d write something nice about the two guys.

After cleaning the rubber wiper,and the pads that are on the right side (facing the printer) where the head normally rests, and waiting about two days for whatever ink was left on the underside of the print head, both machines are as good as new.  I feel more comfortable now, that at least when I do get ink smudges, whether they are being tracked by the printhead, I know what to do.

There are other issues that come up, such as starwheel marks, or roller marks – that those things I’ve learned to fix a long time ago, either with a cleaning or by readjusting the distance between the printhead and the paper (with certain thick papers such as the Crane/Museo Silver Rag.)  Paper thickness should be set to 0.5 with that stuff.

So I’m really whipping through the prints today.

The other device I came up with, are drying boxes for the cut sheet prints.  When the box they came in is empty, I cut small holes in the top, not enough to let in any cat hair etc. but enough so that evaporation and air flow can take place, and this works fine.  However, with a big print, if a cat hair sticks to the ink while the print is going through the printer – there’s no way to fix that and the print is ruined.  If you try to take it off, it always leaves a mark.

The other thing – is to use one of those swifter dusters, and really keep any part of the outside of the printer that comes in contact with the paper absolutely clean.  This means giving it a good dusting every few days.

I also changed my shipping calculations so that I have three groups of destinations: Australia, New Zealand; Europe, and Canada.  The thing that was killing me – those shipments to Australia.  The Fedex charge for a packaged flat print, or even for a tube, is about $90.  The same shipment to Canada might be say, $45.  And to Europe, about $65.  So what I had before were pricing based on Europeans deliveries – but I started getting orders from all over the place and I had to readjust the charges.  I also don’t have that business of if the total cost is more than a certain amount, I’ll eat the shipment charges.  That was murder.

It’s true that I guess I could do better with the Post Office, but the local post-office is a horror, and I just can’t stand on line, and I almost always seemed to have the wrong form filled out.  I know you can do it online, and I guess wait for a pickup, but I’m already stuck in the house too much just waiting for regular print paper shipments etc.  No, I’ll stick with Fedex.  Haven’t had a single problem with them as far as overseas shipping goes, but as I say – it’s expensive.

So you see – I began the post by writing about the fact that the Epson printer issues are solved; and ended up griping about postage.  Well – what else are blogs for if not to gripe.  But with orders coming in, and still having a chance to shoot, I’m starting to feel back in the groove so to speak.

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And now for your daily grammar question: Do you say, “20% discount off all prints,” or “20% discount on all prints.”  Frankly, neither one sounds correct to me.  Maybe it should be: All Prints – 20% discount.  Or 20% savings on / for all prints.

This sale will be over soon, so it doesn’t matter.  But I like the little countdown widget very much, and I’ll make it a practive to do short sales once a month when things are slow.  So I need to know how to write  that copy.  Copy writer!  Where is my copy writer?  Out gettting drunk again.  Just like all writers.

sold out in the limited edition size of 11 x 14.  I have about 15 let to go, and that will make the 100.  After that I’ll still sell it in the other sizes, but no more numbered editions.  I hope that doesn’t put me out of business

When I get down to the last ten prints, I’m going to raise the price.  That’s for sure.

And as far as the 20% sale goes – yes it was / is a big success.  And of course that surprised me, but maybe it gave people just that extra little nudge they needed.  I expect that it’s a good idea to do that sort of thing on a regular basis, but not for as long a time period.  Maybe a three day sale, or less.  Of course since I don’t have a spot for the customer to say why they decided to buy a print, I don’t know for absolute sure, but I can say that I’ve gotten at least one order per day and sometimes more since the sale began.  And before that, things were dreadfully slow.

So it is about the money.  Who would’ve thunk it.

Most types of photography can be easily defined by their subjects. A wedding photographer takes pictures of weddings. A portrait photographer poses someone and takes their picture. The nature photographer covers a wide area, but it is easy to categorize.

Street photography is difficult to define because it can encompass just about any subject.

If I were to ask you to name a few famous street photographers, you might pick, Garry Winnograd, Henri Cartier-Bresson, or maybe Robert Frank. But if I asked you to define street photography – that would be more difficult. You might say that street photography is candid pictures of strangers on the street. That might be a good start, but it doesn’t really describe street photography. Read the rest of this entry »