On this week's RAWtalk, Stephen and I discuss some of the major news stories from the prior week. SIGMA finally announced pricing for its much anticipated 18-35 F1.8 lens. A photographer is suing BuzzFeed for $3.9 Million. Is this the Canon 3D in this blurry photos??? Rumors are flying that Adobe may drop the price of Photoshop and Creative Cloud soon and NASA gives us a first-hand look at what cameras are on the Mars Curiosity Rover.
This was another excellent RAWtalk episode. Jared hit on a lot of things during the "Flying solo" portion and I'd like to break it down and talk about each of the things I liked, but I'd end up just repeating his entire podcast and you should just listen to it for yourself. But, a few things...
At the beginning, they spoke about someone suing Buzzfeed for using one of their photos in an article. Suing them. One of my photos was used by Sean Curry in a Buzzfeed article/list. And when I say "one of my photos", I mean literally, it was a photo I took and it was a photo of ME. Well, part of me. It was a photo of my cleavage pressed against another woman's cleavage and we were at a renaissance faire. I called it "Ren faire boobsmush". Did I sue? Hell no. I ended up spamming all of my social networking sites with the link and basically flailing like a squealing fangirl because I thought it was awesome.
22 Things Renaissance Faires do Better than the Real World
And then, toward the end of the podcast, someone had asked the question if Jared worried about people copying his style of photography because he gives out so much of his tips and tricks, and basically tells us HOW he does things. And he said no. He's not worried about it. People can copy him, they can do everything he does in the exact same way, but they don't have his eye. See, I have someone who copies a lot of my photos. And the sad thing is, I don't think that person even enjoys photography. They try to do what I do with my macro photos, but they don't quite get it. They don't have the eye I have for it. They blame everything from their equipment to the weather.
And that brings us to another question- someone asked about finding a niche. And Jared told them to find something that interests them. Find something YOU like and photograph that. Make that your thing. See, I love photography. I love all sorts of photography. I used to focus mainly on macro flower shots, but when the kids got me the DSLR, I expanded. I take photos of what I think would look interesting and if other people like what I do, then all the better.
And Jared went on to say if you don't put yourself out there, you'll never get anything. Be bold. Take risks. Get out there and get seen. Nobody is going to find you if they don't know about you. I've gotten published in the past year because of photos I have done for free. I do photo shoots for the local Masons lodge when they ask. If they present a check to a charity and that sort of thing. It not only gets published in the statewide Masons newspaper, it gets published in the local newspaper. And it gets published with: "Patty Smith of Pahz Photography".
So, have fun, be yourself, take risks, do what you love, share your knowledge... at least, that's what I do. If someone asks me for advice or information, I answer to the best of my ability and I always, always direct them to Fro Knows Photo.