Last night I pulled myself off my very lazy Sunday butt to go check out the Akron Family Show at One Eyed Jacks. I struggled with whether or not to bring my camera (a dilemma Im always annoying my husband with before we go anywhere) because I've been known to dance wildly with my arms in the air and my eyes completely shut during their shows.
After thinking about all the other random and iffy spots I've brought my camera I decided to bring it. Two great things happened as soon as I walked in the venue: 1) The ballroom was non-moking for the show (unheard of in NOLA) and, 2) Ak Fam had covered up the obnoxious One Eyed Jacks sign (amazing b/c now my shots wont look like every other show I've ever shot at OEJ) with their tie-died flag.
Ive shot Akron family a bunch of times, in NYC, San Fran and other random NE states,so I was thrilled that they finally headed down to NO. For any of you who checked out the show last night or just dig AK AK , theirs a great interview with Miles, their lead singer in February's issue of Anti-Gravity. The article featured a few Akron pics from the past. Download the issue PDF here, page 15.
Akron rocked it as usual...and seemed to be testing out some new stuff. Their opening act Warpaint....well lets just say it, pretty HOT!!
....Posting some pics from last nights show later tonight
I'm attempting to tackle the beast of photo sales in order to make it possible for people to purchase prints or digital copies of my photos online.PhotoShelter makes it pretty simple to "assign" pricing profiles to individual shots or galleries of images in order to set photo prices. After doing some research there seems to be a whole slew of other research that I need to do in order to make this happen. Questions to ponder:
Who are the possible people that might be buying my photos?
What purposes will they be using my photos for?
What is the average price people pay for in each of these categories?
Where do I fall within those averages based on my buyers and experience?
What forms (print vs. digital files) do I want my photos to be available in?
Do I want to go the online route where PS will take 10% commission off each print sold to make my life easier
Oh yeah..and the obvious....will this work actually pay off, (AKA will anyone actually buy my photos)
Because this blog had originally been intended to help other like-minded photographers find info re: "all this stuff", Ill be doing some reading and posting again later today or tom.
I need a new full sensor camera.......so who's ready to buy some photos? :)
I stayed up late last night trying to edit some of my photos from Mardi Gras day, which by far was my best shooting day of the week. I had sent some photos to an editor Monday afternoon, but told her it'd be worth the wait for images taken on tuesday. The Mardi Gras 2010 images were featured on the home page of the NY Daily News website...but none of the photos from MG day were included. Its tough when working on web-based because people want images out fast and being only one person, its difficult to party...shoot.... and edit all at the same time. Learned a lot of lessons this time around. Have a new found love for NOLA after this festive time of year.
Check out the full gallery of what I think are the best highlights here.
Note to reader...this entry is a meandering mess...sorry
Rainy days......last nights rescheduling of Muses was a bummer. The weather continues to suck and is putting a bit of a damper on all the Mardi Gras Festivities. I'm fighting a throat cold and need someone to go to Walgreen's and get me some Zicam stat.
The Saints parade was cold and took a while to get underway...but fun nonethe less. Shai and I met some interesting characters in the crowd, as always. (which looking back now, is prob how I got got sick, swigging of their bottle of *?!?&!) *some of my students might read this . Earlier that day I headed over to Lakeside Camera to by a flash diffuser (before the floats make travelling anywhere a mess) for all the sick parties going on this weekend.
While I was there I checked out some lenses. Since I booked this wedding gig in the spring Ive been obsessively thinking thinking about which lenses Ill need to purchase/rent so that I have the wedding covered. (more on rentals in another post soon) On a side note I walked into Rue De La Course the other day and a girl sitting outside mentioned that she checked out my site after I posted the Mod Dance Party Pics on Facebook. It was def. cool to have someone be like "are you Erica, I checked out your site..blah blah blah..."She mentioned that she was a photographer too. Check out some of her work on Flickr here. The reason I mention this is because I realized, after attending a friends wedding in NYC this past weekend, that I will most likely need an assistant/second shooter for this weekend in the spring. Trying to get Linda (that's her name) the gig if I can get the bride to throw in some $$ to hire another shooter.
Anyway, back to lenses, while I was at Lakeside Cam I checked out a few lenses that I would love to purchase but obv. cant afford , and realized that I really need to make the jump and purchase a new cam first, with a full sensor. Scott, the man who helped me (who incidentally is also a photographer)....check out his new site I heart NOLA here. was mentioning that he wants to wait for a new full frame sensor model with a better build than the 5D Mark II., but I'm feeling pretty anxious. I'm desperate for a full frame cam but maybe I should wait. All the lenses on the full frame have such a broader scope and capture so much more of the surrounding scene which I think is something that's been somewhat lacking in my shots. I would love to be able to work with two bodies (full & cropped) this way I can capture each scene in a different way.
I shot the Saints parade with my 50D with a 17 - 40 F4 lens and popped on a fixed 50 /F 1.8 for a bit. The extra stops really helped and I was able to shoot without my flash which in my opinion is aways better. Check out a few shots in the slide show on top of this post. One of the images is a combination of two crowd shots shot from almost from the same vantage but with two very different lighting looks. Check it....and comment as always.
Tonight...Muses...DJ Starkey @ one eyed jacks......spellcaster.....etc, as always stay posted for pics. Ill prob post them in the archive section of my new customized website...check it here
This week there will be an overwhelming amount of things to shoot here in NOLA. Working with a friday deadline to an editor Im going to be shooting / drinking / editing / shooting / drinking /editing / etc..... With this in mind I really wanted my website to be in order, so when and if any of my pics are picked up, people visiting my site for the first time will get a good idea of the kind of stuff I shoot.
I still think I need to re-envision some of my galleries so that they work better as groups of images, but for now Im happy that I even got to this point. I was finally able to figure out how to customize my home page so that it was well integrated with my Photoshelter site. Now, I have three main categories highlighted on my homepage and have the rest of the galleries hidden in the archive section.
I used Dreamweaver to create my new homepage, essentially copying the design of my PS site, then created three galleries and embedded them in the dreamweaver site.
This past weekend in New Orleans things really started to heat up. Krewe De Vieux followed by an amazing Mod Dance Party (MDP) set the tone for the month to come. This Mardi Gras (only being my second) I plan on shooting as many parades as possible to try and practice my night shooting. Yesterday I reviewed my photos from MDP and started thinking about where to post my gallery.
Ive been trying to re-focus my website so that only the "best of the best" photos go up there, giving the public a chance to see the style of work I do in a quick snapshot, however, by posting galleries of events that people want to see, might draw new audiences to my site. I will use my two latest shoots, Krewe De Vieux and MDP to test which gallery posts get more views, gal on my profile on FB or FB link to my site.
I figure KDV shots would be a good gal to post on Facebook cause Ill want to wait till the end of MG to select from all the parades to create a gallery on my website. Stay tuned for both posts.
Next post will prob be about the new template site Ive been testing, "Livebooks"
