Horse – Color IR
Came across some color infrared shots that I like. These were actually done with an IR filter and an unmodified 40d on a tripod (hence the blur and horse movement). Can’t remember what filter I was using but it was dark enough so that you couldn’t see anything through the viewfinder. A lot easier with a modified IR camera. As a general rule, this is the only style of color that I can enjoy with my own photographs, i.e. the number of colors are limited, and it feels more like a watercolor than an oil painting if you know what I mean. I’ve done some straight color once in a while, and for a few days, I like it – but I almost always tire of it quickly. The infrared color seems to keep my attention and when I return to it months later – it still appeals to me.
Caption Contest
Funny captions wanted. If I use yours – you get a pack of these cards, or a mug with your caption. I have a few in mind, but I won’t put them up until I see if anyone comes up with something better.
This one of Shea being torn down – it’s pretty much gotta be in color.
Discovery
Something completely unexpected has been happening in the Zazzle world – not just that products (I don’t really know exactly what to call them) – are selling, but that images that I couldn’t sell to save my life (i.e. more quirky stuff) has been selling. What I mean is that the postcard or the greeting card or the mug seems to be a more acceptable place for these images than people’s walls.
You see what I’m saying – the so-called “postcard shots” are selling for living room prints; but the non-postcard shots are actually selling on postcards and greeting cards. What I could use is someone to write captions for the postcards, i.e. humorous captions. At any rate, I’m starting to think that postcards and greeting cards (and I don’t know why exactly) are a better place for quirky images.
It was something that I noticed when I used to look at photo cards in the nearby card store – that the cards covered a much wider range of the human condition than you would see on living room walls. Maybe it’s because the card is more event-driven. Maybe it’s because you want more emotion, humor, irony – for the card than for the wall because when you buy a card, you want it to say something to the other person, both about your own personality, and the other person’s situation (which can be all sorts of predicaments).
To sum it up – if you are trying to sell images that are, how can I put it – more artistic, or more edgy, the cards, mugs, etc. may really be worth the effort. Whether it’s Zazzle or some other place that will sell the card for you, give it a try. It costs nothing to try (other than time).
Now – if Zazzle would sell cards (like Hallmark does) with sound – then I have a job for Lester. But don’t worry Les – so far – I don’t see them offering that (though it would be easy enough to do from an interface point-of-view, i.e. design the card, and then upload the music. I’m guessing that the problem is that you need to create a gizmo for each card to play the sound and it’s going to be expensive.
p.s. I got great reactions from the cards. Several people who received cards went to Zazzle and bought a bunch (I put my website on the back of the cards). So maybe the little stuff I see – such as color shift – is just the way I’m looking at the photographs. Which is to say, with a trained eye. If someone put a glass doorknob in front of me and gave me a loupe and told me it was the Great Diamond of Kava Ringo – one of the most valuable diamonds in the world – I doubt if I could tell glass from diamond. This has happened many times to me – where a photographic product is presented and I see all these flaws in it – and the person and everyone else thinks it is just beautiful. I suppose that’s the price of going over the 10,000 hour limit.
Man on the Corner of
One thing I can say – my eyesight has held up well. I used to wear glasses all the time, and don’t wear them anymore except for driving which is a rare enough event that most of the time I can’t even find my glasses if I have to drive. Yes, Man on the Corner of… what’s the difference. I just like the way he’s poking into the frame. He reminds me of some character, maybe it was Kilroy? some artist that often had someone sort of squeezing themselves into the picture.
No Matting for a While
Oh, if this would work out – it would be a giant leap forward for mankind, okay – a giant leap forward for me. I removed all the mat offerings. Period. Keep it simple. I also added one larger size for the rectangle aspect prints (22 x 28). Basically this is because the largest Exhibition Paper I can use is 24 x 30, and that’s the only way a 35mm aspect print will fit with a bit of a margin on the top / bottom. I’m trying to make things as labor free for myself as possible so that more of my time can go into creative stuff such as making mugs and weaving baskets. Okay, I’m kidding there – but only slightly. It is fun to figure out how to combine images on a mug or a calendar etc. and I’ve always found that if it’s fun – it’s a good sign.
So no more matting unless I see sales go in the tank and determine that’s the reason. I sold 12 mugs today. And what’s happening is that the cards that went out with the website on the back have brought in some customers.
We’re waiting for a big snow storm to hit. It’s started already – but very light so far. I’m hoping that it’s still snowing hard tomorrow so I can make it to the park or wherever. I was thinking it might be interesting from the Top of the Rock though of course you won’t see much but snow flakes and the Empire State Building and for all I know they close it during a blizzard. Whatever. I am getting the urge to start clicking again, now that I have the time.
New York Romance Poster
With the last Christmas order now on the way, I can do some more hopefully creative work with the Zazzle posters. This takes nine images from the calendar, and makes one very large poster. I think it can be printed at something like 70 inches across. I did pull one trick with it — since the poster is going to be resized by Zazzle, I wanted to use their vector graphics (text) but be able to place it in the photo against a lighter background. So I made a spot for the title, and lightened it up in Photoshop.
Then when I made the poster in Zazzle, I used their vector type and placed it in the box I had made for it. I also have begun to include more “rule lines” of my own which is something you can’t do very well in Zazzle. In short, you want to upload a bitmap image (png, jpg etc.) and leave the vector stuff to them as much as possible.
Now, there may be ways to do ruled lines etc. (not around the entire print but just a section of it) through Zazzle but I haven’t found that yet.
swirling part iii
“The whole issue of this seems to revolve around accomodating the mat, as you can easily use a shipping tube otherwise. What is the reasoning behind your decision to offer a matted print anyway (i.e. appearance, etc.)? Just curious.” by Greg
And this is how it happened:
In the darkroom days, when a print was still wet (after washing) and I would hold it up and look at it – it just looked great. Then it would dry down, get a bit crinkled, and lose some of the shine that it had while it was wet. It would get flattened, and then placed into a nice bevel cut mat. At that point I would say, ah, it’s beginning to regain that beauty it had when it was wet. And then, when it was framed, under glass, it would come back for me, all the way and maybe it was just as beautiful as when I was first looking at it wet.
So I had this idea about presentation in my head, that had to do with wanting to present the prints matted; as they looked well under the mat and were, so to speak, clothed. I even tried selling frames prints in the very beginning but that was a long and troubled story involving broken glass and crazy working hours for next to nothing.
But that’s the origin of the mat, the idea of presenting the print in as finished a state as possible.
Now there are other benefits, you get my signature on the mat – though that could be replaced by just having the signature and date on the print and the person does a “floating” mat.
So you ask a wonderful “outside the box” question – whether I should sell them matted at all. Without the mat, my business becomes much easier. Now, I am going to do a bit of a survey, and look at sales; and try and determine whether the mat is necessary or not. Off the bat, I can tell you that only about half the sales are for matted prints. And some people write to ask for an explanation of what a mat is. (More often than you’d think). So it is something to really consider.
* * *
You know – I think I have the answer. Once I run out of mats at the 20 x 24 size – stop offering to mat that size. It’s really only that size that is the pain. Everything else I am prepared for and can do quickly. Yes – right now – that makes sense to me. A lot of sense. Let me see if it makes sense tomorrow.
* * *
You know what – I’m going to remove the matted prints, either tonight or tomorrow – and see what happens to the business. It will make life much simpler for me. It’s a good time to do it I think since I’ve gone through tons of mats this last month, and I’m going to have to order more soon if business keeps up the way it’s been going (I actually got three orders today) and these aren’t for Christmas anymore. I’m also going to offer one larger rectangle print and change the prices around a bit. Let’s see what happens. If sales plummet, or there are a lot of requests for mats, I may say something like, mats available by special order or something.
swirling part ii
working on the last christmas order, two 8 x 10’s (unmatted) and one 12 x 18 of Central Park Lake – matted on 20 x 24 inch. no doubt about it, the 20 x 24 mat is the hardest to package, esp. if I’m doing some that are going overseas.
the problem is that you obviously can’t roll it up in a tube (mats don’t take to that) you can’t just put it between two sheets of cardboard and put it in a kraft mailer (the thing will still bend) or the corners will get mashed up. obviously, not always, but enough times so that i can’t take the chance.
i do have these corners for shipping that are variable width and can go on – but by themselves, the mat can still be bent.
sticking it in a cardboard box doesn’t protect it either. so what i came up with is taking four pieces of 8 x 10 cardboard, folding them along the creases and giving very big corner and side protection to the mat. (obviously time consuming). and then one more 16 x 20 piece of cardboard that goes at an angle so that the corners are sticking out and that prevents the mat from being bent, and also keeps the print centered in the mailer, so that the sides aren’t flush against the sides of the mailer.
this works. but it is just a giant P.I.T.A. esp. if you’ve got a lot to do.
a solution would be a thin say 2 inch high box that was actually strong. they measure these things in pounds. i.e. this cardboard can support 250 pounds. etc. but i haven’t found boxes that are the right size that are made of esp. strong cardboard.
so that’s the one thing left in the packaging workflow that is still not solved for me. now there are possible boxes that fold over etc. -and are flat – but they are so big (flat) that you can’t walk into the house if they’re in my usual place; and they need to be delivered by truck which is extra expensive.
The only thing I can think of is some sort of super cardboard that can’t easily be bent. For example – I used to use the Fedex boxes and cut them up because they were much stronger than normal cardboard. But that was just as big a PITA and looked un-professional. alright – let me finish up this last order and then maybe i can put all your collective minds to the problem; or raise the price on the 20 x 24 mats so that it’s worth the effort.
yours sincerely,
the poor shlub (is that another great Yiddish word) in the packaging dept.
* * *
I just sent this email to a few possible suppliers:
Hi,
I run a fine art photography site and am looking for the best packaging for 20 x 24 matted prints. In other words, the outer dimensions are 20 x 24 inches, the height of a single mat is about 3/4 of an inch.
Sometimes I need to ship more than one matted print at a time; other times it’s just the one print.
What I do now is to put two pieces of 20 x 24 cardboard around the print, then put that into a very large kraft mailer and put corners on the sides of the mailer. This isn’t enough protection.
If you have any products with extra strength cardboard, or the fold-over idea – whatever – it would be very useful to me.
For 16 x 20 and smaller mats, I put them between two sheets of cardboard, and put them sideways into a very large kraft mailer and fold the mailer over in half. This works pretty well.
One other product that would be very useful – a shipping tube with a diameter of say 6 inches – but with a length of 20 inches at most. Larger tubes are available and I use them for unmatted large prints. But it would be great if there were shorter and wide tubes as well for smaller prints.
Any suggestions would be most welcome.
You can see my site below if it matters.
Best,
Dave Beckerman
swirling
days have been swirling by in a blur of printing and packaging. i’m too tired to use the caps key.
one day printing from say 6 a.m. until 3 when i have to take a nap, getting up and doing more until i go to bed for the night or the cat won’t let me work anymore; and the next day matting and packaging on the same schedule. yesterday first time that i had to make two trips to Fedex on the same day because i couldn’t carry it all on one trip.
and that – yesterday – was the big push. now i have about four of the large prints (15 x 19 and up) to get through and figure out where to put them to dry; and tomorrow (thurs) everything that is scheduled for Christmas delivery should be on the way.
then there are three new yorkers coming by on friday to pick up prints.
It’s been very lucky that this season went hectic on me because the year had been a washout which I chalked up to the recession. On the other hand, I spent a lot of time during the year making sure the site was ready for xmas; and doing what I called the pre-season sale. I can see that the sale helped big time – which is why everyone in the world does sales.
The only glitch, in the middle of the frenzy was running out of yellow ink which ShadesOfPaper.com was good enough to overnight to me for free. I can’t say enough about the service those guys offer. On top of that – somewhere in the blur they had a half-off sale (speaking of sales) on the Epson Exhibit paper and I really stocked up then which was smart.
Yesterday, I was so busy that I didn’t notice that somehow the radio signal on the blackberry had shut off somehow and had been off for two days. Weird. I looked at the thing which didn’t have email or calls for two days and wasn’t making outgoing calls and realized the thing had turned itself off. Whatever.
On top of that – the Zazzle stuff continues to sell, I wish I knew who was buying it, which is something I can’t see in Zazzle; and I keep adding items when I have a break.
None of this could have been done in the darkrooms days. No way. Just to start off with, the number of sizes I offer, and even the Zazzle stuff, since all the digital files are already prepared for printing. It’s just a matter of uploading them to Z and sticking my name and title on them, and some description which I usually copy and paste from the store website. I have nothing to do with those sales which is the real blessing, and I have just upped my royalty on the posters to 45%. I may go higher with that later.
I also have three lessons scheduled for the new year; so when this is over with I had better get a haircut and get my clothes cleaned. I’m walking around like a bum.
Okay – time for a nozzle check on the 7800. Sure, it needs to be cleaned. Which is why I tend to print for a day, and then package the next. Otherwise I’d be doing nozzle checks around the clock. Ciao.
[hopefully this doesn't come across as whining. just the way it is right now. these are the times i wish i was 25 years younger. man, in the film making days we'd often do 18 hour days. i remember one shoot where we worked three days in a row without sleep. i also remember thinking at the time that this was the sort of life that would be impossible when i got older. i was on the track to be a cinematographer then. i looked at the older cinematographers, i just wondered how, physically, they were able to endure the hours.]
