10 Reasons Why I Shop at Pictureline and You Should Too

(photo by Paul Rohde, Canon 5D Mark II)

In Salt Lake City we are blessed to have a locally owned camera store, Pictureline, that is here to serve the local photographers. Here are ten reasons in no particular order that I support this business and you should too:

Locally Owned
Pictureline is locally owned and operated. You can walk in just about anytime and speak directly with the owner, Jens Nielsen. Your dollars spent at Pictureline are staying within the community.

They Receive Great Manufacturer Support
What better example of this than the fact that Pictureline was one of the first (if not THE first) retailer in the U.S. to have the Canon 5D Mark II in stock. They move a large amount of product and appear to have great connections within the manufacturers.

They Give Back
Pictureline's annual event, Digitalfest, is one example of their giving back to the photographers they serve. This year's keynote speakers of Sam Abell and Julianne Kost were fantastic. The event was free to customers. Additionally they offer free classes through their Digital U training program. These classes are aimed at photographers of all skill levels.

Non-Commission Sales People
I have never felt like I was being pressured into buying something. The sales staff has always been more concerned in what would fit my needs rather than the price of the equipment.

They Treat Their Employees Well
As evidenced by the long-time employees at the store, the staff appears to truly enjoy working there. Turnover seems to be pretty low. This means that there are always familiar faces ready to serve.

Personalized Service
The best example of this was when my 70+ year old mother was in town last Christmas. She went into Pictureline by herself to pick up a gift for me (what a nice mother!). She has since raved numerous times about how well she was treated. The young lady who helped her took all the time to answer her questions and make sure she was getting what she needed.

They Stand Behind What They Sell
They recently replaced an out-of-warranty piece of equipment for me without even being asked. I was talking with them about purchasing a replacement, and they asked why. When I told them that it had died, they stepped up and replaced it.

Rentals
They provide a rental service. If I need an additional piece of gear for a shoot, I know that I can make a call and have it reserved. I have rented large lenses (400mm+) and additional Pocket Wizards.

Great Website
The Pictureline.com website not only has great up-to-the-second inventory info, it has a community section as well. I know that if I sign up to be notified when a piece of equipment comes in stock that I will get an automated email the minute it is available. In the community section, they have a free Directory in which photographers can feature a bio and samples of their work.

Berkley
Berkley is my main contact. He is the sales person I have depended on for a few years now. I know that he will do what it takes to help me out. He has gone out of his way on more than one occasion to find a certain piece of equipment for me. The best part is that I was treated the same way from him when I first went into the store and he didn't know me at all.

I'm sure that there are many other reasons I could come up with. In a recent conversation with Scott Bourne of This Week in Photography, I was telling Scott about Pictureline. He said something that I have heard from many photographers - that locally owned stores that cater to photographers are quickly disappearing in our country. If we want this type of store to stick around, then we need to support them.

p.s. Pictureline neither supports this site or gives me any special deals. I am a fan of their business simply because of the great service I have received from them over the years.

Black Friday

What better way to recognize the busiest shopping day of the year than to show one of my images in a Black Friday advertisement. Here's the original image the designer purchased on iStock. They didn't make much adjustments from my editing other than the addition of some ornament graphics.



(Thanks to Scott Smith for spotting this and sending it over)

Thanksgiving Mini-Photowalk

I just got off the phone with Harley, and we are planning on doing a mini-photowalk in downtown Salt Lake City tonight beginning at 8:00 pm. If anyone wants to join us, drop me an email at rich at leggnet dot com and I will let you know where we are meeting.

Hopefully the streets will still be wet from today's rain which will make for some nice reflections. This will be a great opportunity for me to try out some high ISO images on the new 5D mark II.

Update: We will be meeting at the City Center Trax Station (100 S. Main Street) at 8:00 pm

Canon 5D Mark II - On Assignment

After running the new 5D Mark II through some successful testing yesterday, I opted to make it my primary camera on a shoot I did today for a regional magazine. The assignment was to shoot images to accompany a feature article on a high end steak house. I must say that I am very pleased with the results.

I paired the body with my main lens, the Canon 24-105 f4L, and went to work. I was assigned to get images of steak, a portrait of the manager and an interior shot of the restaurant. The camera performed flawlessly in taking on this task.

On the food and portrait settings I used monolights at ISO 100 just as I would have done with my original 5D, but on the restaurant interior I used existing lighting at ISO 1000. I would have never pushed the speed that high with the 5D but with the Mark II the results were fantastic.

The exposure and color represented in the RAW images straight out of the camera were great. I did very little adjustment in the RAW conversion. On the image shown above, the only editing I have done to it outside of the conversion in Adobe Camera Raw was to add a high pass sharpening layer.

The only thing I don't like about the Mark II as of now is that I don't have a battery grip. I have been using grips on my cameras for 25+ years (I had motor drives on my old Nikon 35mm film bodies) and am really accustomed to holding the grip for vertical shots so it took a little adjustment today. The grip for the Mark II (Canon BG-E6) hasn't arrived yet at Pictureline. As soon as it comes in it will become a near permanent fixture to the body.

Next up for the new camera, submitting some images from it to iStock.

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/6.3, ISO 100

5D Mark II in my hands

Thanks to my great friends at Pictureline, I was able to secure one of the first Canon 5D Mark II cameras to be publicly available in the US. I can't wait to run it through some test work before putting it into production. High ISO, here I come!

November 26 Update

After putting the camera through some simulated production work last night, I feel safe in putting it into actual service. I will be using it today for a magazine assignment (with my workhorse 5D along as a backup of course). One thing to note is that I have discovered how much I use the battery grip on my camera bodies. I hope the BG-E6 arrives soon at Pictureline.

Photoshop Tip: Blend a B&W Layer to add Edginess

Since the majority of my photo editing is for my stock portfolio, I tend to be rather vanilla with my editing. By that I mean that I keep my images pretty true to how they were shot. For uses outside of stock however, a friend of mine recently showed me a quick way to add edginess to an image by blending layers.

I will be the first person to tell you that I am no master of layer blending in Photoshop (I will defer that title to Ann Torrence, her knowledge on the subject is amazing!), but I really like the look that this effect creates.

In today's before/after image, I opened one of my shots from last weekend in Photoshop. The sample on the left is unedited other than the RAW conversion. On the other image (right side), I only added this simple process in Photoshop:

1. Create a copy of the original layer above itself
2. Desaturate the new layer (apple-shift-U on a Mac)
3. Set the blending of the new layer to 'Overlay'

If you want to further tweak the settings, try different blending modes (soft light, hard light, etc.) and play around with opacity.

And that's it. A quick and fairly easy way to add a more dramatic look to an image.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/50 second, f/4, ISO 100

Life on the Street - Stock Photo Shoot

One of the photo shoots I did this past weekend was a session portraying a homeless couple. My goal was to create a series of realistic images to be added to my stock photo portfolio.

In the images I had the models dress in several layers of well worn clothing. To further perpetuate the stereotype, I have them a shopping cart filled with belongings. Harley and Diane agreed to model and did an exceptional job in preparing the wardrobe. I was fortunate enough to come across an abandoned shopping cart in a vacant field last month and picked it up in preparation.

For the location, I found a vacant building in an older part of Salt Lake City. This locale suited the purpose extremely well. Parking was close, it had afternoon shade and the sidewalk was a mix of old bricks and smooth concrete.

The primary light source was natural light with fill being provided by an off-camera speedlight shooting through a white umbrella. The off camera light was being triggered via IR from an on-camera speedlight. I shot in Aperture Priority with the fill light set on TTL at an exposure compensation factor of between -2/3 to -1 1/3 f/stop.



I haven't completed editing the series, but so far I am extremely pleased with the results. The samples shown here have quite a bit more editing/effects than I will apply to the final stock images, but I wanted to give a bit more "edge" to them to see how they would look.

With the current state of the global economy, I have hope that these images will unfortunately be good sellers.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/50 second, f/4, ISO 100

"Free Image of the Week" at iStockphoto.com

I came home this afternoon to find that one of my images has been chosen as the "Free Image of the Week" at iStockphoto.com. While this particular honor won't make me any additional sales (or will it?), it is always nice to have one's work recognized by peers.

To pick up your own free full-resolution copy of the shot, drop by the image's page this week at iStockphoto by clicking here.

She Gets 110 Channels

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/60 second, f/5, ISO 100

iStockphoto Download # 50,000

I sold my 50,000th image on iStockphoto last night. Next stop, 100k!

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/125 second, f/4, ISO 160

New Project at DIYPhotography.net

My friend Udi over at DIYPhotography.net is running an interesting new project. The theme is Sharing. He's asking his readers to pair up with a friend and share a photography experience. In the project, the participants temporarily exchange a piece of camera gear with a friend and write a review about it. To sweeten the pot, BorrowLenses.com is supplying some great prizes to fit the theme.

Sounds fun. I guess I've got to find someone to swap gear with. Hmmmm.... maybe a Nikon shooter?

For the rest of the details on this unique project, head over to DIYPhotography.net.

...go round and round...

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 3/5 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

Hanging Around the Studio

I've recently been doing some work for the rock climbing team my wife manages. She is creating marketing materials and is incorporating photos of team members.

Today's image came from a recent studio session we did with team member Sarah. For this shot we looped the climbing rope over the rafters and had her tie in. I initially took some images from eye level before moving up onto a ladder to get the top down capture shown here. Here's a shot of the setup I took when I stepped back to let Sarah's father get her picture.



The isolation was a bit more difficult than usual, due to the fact that I could have easily used 2 more lights on the shot for the lower portion. To complete the isolation I had to spend a bit of time in Photoshop cleaning up the bottom of the frame.

Rivalry

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/50 second, f/8, ISO 100

Full Page Ad in Avionics International News

I had a friend spot this in Avionics International News and give it to me. Here's the original image that was used. I like how they integrated it into the ad's design.

GameDay

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/10 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

Tuff Enuf

Blogging Motivation

When I began this blog back in 2005, it marked my return to the photography world. I had been out of it since selling my film gear in the mid nineties. It has been a fun journey over the past three years and I look forward to keeping it going well into the future. I'm frequently asked why I do it. Since the ads on the blog only generate around $15 a month, it's not for the money. My answer would be that of the 1,500 or so daily readers (via site visits and RSS), I hope that maybe I can encourage a few readers with my photos and occasional writing.

Yesterday was a day for confirmation. Within 30 minutes of each other, I received two separate emails from blog readers. These letters both motivated and encouraged me so I thought I'd share them here today:

Email #1

The first time I saw your blog was when you had the light bulb that was burning. I bookmarked it immediately and read through all of your older posts.

I emailed you when I was buying my first DSLR and took your advice and ended up with a 30D. I watched you grow as a professional photographer and realized I could do the same thing. I dropped out of college and pursued my dream. Four months later I talked my way into a position as an assistant for a wedding photographer and really started learning the trade.

I'm now the second shooter at all the weddings and soon to be leading my own second shooter. Recently I got accepted for a stock agency and am building up my catalog. I'm still working my day job as a graphic designer, but am slowly fading out of that and focusing on photography full time. I catch myself thinking about ideas for stock while I'm driving and looking at ads and products differently to help me think of things to shoot.

I wanted to say thanks for the blog, the inspiration, and the ideas. I still read your blog every day as it gives me a different perspective on things sometimes and motivates me to sell more stock. Keep up the good work

Email #2

Hi Rich

I LOVED your recent story about the spooky image of your daughter being chosen for movie image. Actually I really liked that image at Halloween and thought it was a 2008 image.

I admire your success and again such a good inspiration, cause I think it's pretty difficult figuring out the secrets and acceptance tricks here at istock...but I love stories like yours to keep my faith!

I sent that story to my husband, neighbors and friends that are all supporting my istock path.

Keep it up! and Thanks!

I guess the moral of the story is that you never know how your endeavors, whether big or small, can affect others. Maybe we should all take a moment today and write an email to someone that has encouraged us.

Just a thought...

From the Inside Out

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/100 second, f/7.1, ISO 100

My Photography is Going to the Movies

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from fellow photographer Thad Lawrence saying that he recognized one of my images when it popped up in his RSS reader. The shot of the buried child (kinda creepy, I know) was the sole element on the movie poster advertising The Alphabet Killer. I did a quick Google search to find out that this was a movie that was filmed a couple of years ago and is just now being released.

This was a cool find for me for various reasons. One of the biggest being that the subject of the shot (kinda creepy, I know) is my daughter. Finding out that she was on this poster was a big deal to her. She immediately started calling and texting her friends. This made me smile.

Another reason is that I shot this image back in 2006 before I began taking stock photography seriously. This was not intended to be a "stock" shot, but rather was simply taken while I was playing around in some leaves with my daughters. I uploaded the shot to iStock half expecting it to be rejected for "over filtering". But it obviously was accepted.

Upon seeing what the designer did with my original image (kinda creepy, I know), it took me a second to even verify that it was my shot. The enhancements that were made to the image, especially the face, are fantastic. Here is the original un-edited image as they purchased it on iStock:



I don't usually go out of my way to get copies of my work in use, but I made an exception with this one. I sent a few emails to the contact information from the film and distribution company's websites. To my surprise, I soon received a response and they are sending me a few posters.

Don't be surprised if you ever drop by my little studio and see this image (kinda creepy, I know) framed on the wall.

Canon 30D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/60 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

Hangin' On

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/125 second, f/8, ISO 100

100 x 100

One of the milestones that contributing artists on iStockphoto like to celebrate is when an image sells for the 100th time. In addition to a warm fuzzy feeling for the photographer, the image gets a little icon to distinguish it as a top seller.

This past week I had my 100th image hit this milestone. The shot of a physical trainer and his client came from a fairly successful series I created earlier this year.

While a little flame icon really won't change my life, it feels good to realize that 100+ buyers voted with their wallet on my photography.

To see all of my images that have sold a hundred or more times, visit the lightbox by clicking here.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 100

Ranch Hand

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens with 1.4x extender - 1/1000 second, f/6.3, ISO 320

"As I was walking down the street a billboard caught my eye..."

A few months back I received an email from a designer who was interested in using one of my images on a billboard campaign for Catholic Social Services of Montana. She had found the image in my iStock portfolio, but considering the nature of her advertisement was concerned about some of the language in the iStock licensing agreement (emphasis added) and whether this use would be a violation:

...use or display any Content that features a model or person in a manner that (i) would lead a reasonable person to think that such person uses or personally endorses any business, product, service, cause, association or other endeavor; or (ii) that depicts such person in a potentially sensitive subject matter, including, but not limited to mental and physical health issues, social issues, sexual or implied sexual activity or preferences, substance abuse, crime, physical or mental abuse or ailments, or any other subject matter that would be reasonably likely to be offensive or unflattering to any person reflected in the Content;

After contacting iStock, she was told that the contributing artist (me!) would have to consent to the image being used in this context. When I received her email inquiring about the use of the shot, I gave her a telephone call to get all the details.

Once I had the details the decision was simple for me, I would let the model in the photograph make the decision. I felt this was the best way to go, even though the original image did not require a model release to be included in my portfolio.

As can obviously be seen by the inclusion of the billboard image on this blog post you can see that the model agreed. The designer was kind enough to email me a photo of one of the final billboards.

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, the designer actually read the license agreement and acted accordingly to be sure she was in compliance. Second, I had the opportunity to decide how I would handle a potentially sensitive image use situation and can use this knowledge in the future.

Your thoughts?

(please keep any pro/con discussion on the billboard context out of the comments and limit it to photograph usage)

The Other Side

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/250 second, f/8, ISO 160

Today's the Day

Where the Photowalkers Roam

Saturday's Photowalking Utah event at Antelope Island was a lot of fun. We had around 40 photographers participate in the walk.

After spending the morning at the bison pens watching the workers give the animals their annual checkup, many in the group headed out to the North end of the island to Garr Ranch. For me, the ranch was much more interesting to photograph than the bison. My favorite image from the event was a simple scene taken at the ranch.



For detailed recaps, drop by the blogs of Ann Torrence and Scott Smith.

To keep up with the latest Photowalking Utah event info, go to PhotowalkingUtah.com.