Archive for April, 2010

When clients ask why I don’t deliver unretouched RAW files,  without getting into a long diatribe listing the many reasons why I retain all files and only deliver client selected retouched versions, the simplest answer seems to be “quality control”.

I can completely understand why clients may feel as though the images they paid good money for are being held hostage.  I empathize with the stress a designer may feel when the client wants an ad out the door ASAP and you can’t get in touch with the photographer.  I can also relate to the desire for any party to wipe their hands clean and to not feel chained and reliant on a photographer to accomplish their goals.  My business practice of retaining control of the images is not an evil plot to make others lives miserable, on the contrary, it is to ensure that you look good and the client is well served.  Once I let an image out free into the world, I no longer have control, but unfortunately am the first to blame when it doesn’t look good, so yes, there is a selfish element here.  My work and business are  judged on the image and I need to do everything possible to control it’s quality.  Fortunately for the client, what best serves my business and reputation serves them as well.

While I am sure to have more blogs on this subject as well as on the value of retouching and the time involved in doing so, perhaps for now, a before and after picture from a shoot when weather was not cooperating, may in fact best illustrate why I prefer to control the final outcome of the image.

I lost an Uncle the other day who fought and defied cancer for 4 years after doctors diagnosed him as terminal and only gave him several months to live.  No photography related subject matter here,  just honoring a man that lived a life worth honoring.   My Uncle John was a true gentleman and one of the kindest and most positive individuals I knew.  He was what you would call genuine,  and they don’t make many of those these days.  He was always a good example to me and my siblings growing up but in fighting cancer and living the remainder of his life with such optimism, strength, courage, and grace,  he taught me more than he will ever know.  It is how we should all live every day.

One of my favorite memories of my Uncle, with photos included, was when during a family beach vacation we had a wig party.  At the time he was undergoing chemo and lost all his hair and that night someone loaned him the classic mullet wig. “business in the front and party in the back”  About midway through the night I pronounced that Uncle John’s  mullet was my favorite to which he turned to me and replied  ” You know everyone keeps saying that to me tonight……… now what in the hell is a mullet”

Thanks for the memories……. you will be missed.

O.K.  I am adamantly against those chain emails that threaten bad luck and disaster if you do not forward it onto 10 people and although the one my mother recently sent did not do that, it actually may have raised the bar.

She sent, by regular mail, a classroom journal.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my own kids school projects……… sometimes….. but this was a project for a 5th grade student in New York who I didn’t even know.   It was a journal that the class was hoping to spread around the country for individuals to write in describing where they lived. They wanted you to include photos, descriptions as well as to send a postcard to the class while the journal continued it’s way to the next victim.  Sure, in the initial directions it asks that if you can not complete the project within two weeks to please mail the package to someone else who can.  That doesn’t seem like a viable option to me.  I would have a very difficult time sending the journal onto a friend, family member, or even enemy, asking them to take out time to participate when I couldn’t even do it myself.

This task was going to take out time from any individuals schedule but to pass it on to an artist who by nature links a large part of their self worth to what they create… well that is just cruel.   Of course I know she didn’t think much of it and really, why would she think that I would obsess about it the way I did.  As I sat at the computer, literally for hours, importing images and designing pages when every part of me was trying to stop myself and get back to actually making a living, I began to question whether I had serious issues or not.  Part of me wants to justify it by claiming myself the perfectionist but there is the other part of me that is disgusted with myself for caring too much about something that really doesn’t matter.  What is ironic is that the journal entry before mine is from my mother who went on the computer, googled Ocean City, Maryland, and printed out a few pages she found on the area and glued it to the pages of the journal.  Done !    I started that same way, thinking she was brilliant, but after researching, I was not finding the right material.  I attempted to find a couple of skyline photos of Charlotte, and either was not happy with what I found or the ones I did like, could not in good conscience use out of respect for the copyright holders…..  O.K.  I am sure pride played a role in there too,  after all, what self respecting photographer uses someone else’s photos over their own?  Then it dawned on me, I had photographed Charlotte fairly extensively on an assignment for the US AIR in flight Magazine several years ago.  Piece of cake! Download the PDF’s of the article and photos, print them out, paste them in and move on……………well that would be too easy.

After downloading the pdf’s I realized that I had to contend with advertisements and layouts and dimensions that did not fit my 5th grade journal dimensions and that is when it all started.  Suddenly I was scaling things, redesigning, importing new images, and laying out a brochure on Charlotte……so maybe I really do have problems……. but I know there are others out there that would do the same thing.  The real question for me is, would my mother be proud that I have high standards and produced a good quality journal entry for a  5th grade project out of personal pride, or would she think I was an idiot?   Being that my mother used to put dried Cheerios and a frozen bottle of milk in our cribs at night that would be thawed when we woke, ensuring another hour or two of sleep for herself, tells me that I know the answer to that question.