PPA Entries

OK, so I've gottena a little flack for not posting the images from the PPA International Competition.  Well, here they are:

This one is titled "Do I or Don't I?" and it is now in the PPA Permanent Loan Collection.

"Hangin" With the Boys.  This one was First Place in Illustrative at Florida State last year with a score of 97 out of 100.

"Bedroom Eyes", a Distinguished Print in the Portrait Category at Florida State in 2008.

"Choose Your Next Move Carefully"  This one was the Wildcard.  Never been entered in larger competitions.  Did well at a local Tampa Area Competition so I gave it a shot.

There you go, all the prints that helped earn a new title.

-B

Denise & Brent's Wedding Photos!

Denise and Brent's Wedding Photos are now online.  They are available as a Showcase on my website so anyone can see them.  This is a REAL wedding with REAL people and this is REALLY what Denise and Brent see from their wedding!

Go to www.briancidocks.com and click on CLIENT LOGIN and choose your gallery!

-B

Wow, I mean, WOW!

I just got the list from the Professional Photographers of America about their International Print Competition.  Let me explain what that is.  It's a print competition open to photographers from ALL OVER THE WORLD to have 4 of their images critiqued by a panel of judges.  The competition is FIERCE!!  We're talking the best in the world here people!

Anyhow, I have 4 prints out of 4 that made the List!  That give me a new title " PPA Photographer of the Year".  One of my prints was chosen to be in the PPA PERMANENT LOAN COLLECTION!  That raises my level a lot for Photographer of the Year!

By the way, there are only about 200 people on this list IN THE WORLD!!  I guess I can now say I'm one of the top 200 photographers in the world!  Wow, just, wow.

I'm gonna go try to calm down now.........

-B

Niccel & Jeremy's Engagement Session

Sand Key Park got just a little hotter last night!

Niccel and Jeremy are one beautiful couple!

Even though it looked stormy, we survived it and came out with some amazing photographs. By the way, the rain held off until we got back to the parking lot, perfect timing.

They both didn't realize what I mean by "You will get wet".  No, that water is not Photoshopped, it's real, and it's wet! But...... it's a lot of fun!  Poor Jeremy got completely soaked while Niccel managed to keep her hair dry.

Here's their sneak peek!

Thursday Wedding?

Really?  A Wedding on a Thursday?

Believe it.

Dale and Karla had a beautiful ceremony on the beaches of the Clearwater Hilton.  Joanie and Nick always do a great job!  We had some hot sun and everybody got a little sweaty, but I think there's some great photos too!  Here's their sneak peek!

Denise & Brent at the Sirata

I have been a bad blogger lately.  There's been a lot going on and I'm behind in my sneak peeks!

Denise and Brent were married at the beautiful Sirata Resort.  Dawn from Wedding Wows did a great job of keeping the event flowing smoothly.  The Flowers by Heather of the Rose Garden were amazing!  Here's their sneak peek:

As if this wasn't enough.....

So, we offer Wedding Photography, you knew that, right?

Well, we do.

We also do Family Portraits, and Seniors, and children.

You knew that, didn't you?

We also offer Paintings.  Yep, you read that right.  I paint.

We've offered them for a while, but VERY soon, we will have a "Painted Portrait Package" (say that 3 times fast!)

I love painting and I feel this is a product whose time has come.  Many years ago royalty and the very wealthy paid large sums of money to have their likeness painted onto canvas.  Today, there are not enough pieces of art being created.  Sure there are lots of "snapshots" of family, but what about a real, down to earth, painted portrait in the style of the old masters or even something more contemporary?  Do you have one?  I don't, but I'm working on it!

I just spent a week with Internationally reknowned Painter Deborah Lynn Ferro and wow, did I learn a lot.  I've been painting for years, but she really focused me and gave me direction.

Alright, enough talk!

Here's a photo of a friend of mine, Kimberly, and her Mom.  I photographed them at Phillipe Park in Safety Harbor with no intention of making a painting from it.

 

 And here's the painting!

Hope you enjoy it!  I just have to figure out how to package it and we will have a new section on the website for paintings!

-B

Getting Better All The Time......

I will not be posting much if at all for the next week or so since Derica, Melissa and I will be joining Professional Photographers from all over the state and beyond in Daytona Beach for the Florida Professional Photographers Florida School.

This is a yearly event where we get to spend a week with an instructor in a small class format to learn as much as we can.

This year, Derica and I are working with Debra Lynn Ferro to brush up (hehe) on Photoshop and Painting skills!  Melissa is spending the week with Lori Nordstrom to learn about shooting the little ones (photographically, of course).

Don't miss me too much, ok?

-B

Aren't Photographers just Glorified Paper Salesmen?

Yeah, right......

When film was king, there was more truth to that statement, but it still wasn't true.

We all know the actual act of producing the image onto a piece of 8"x10" paper only costs a few dollars, that's not earth shattering news.

But.......

Here's why Wal* charges $2 and professionals charge >$50 or more!

First, there's cost of doing business:  licenses, permits, insurance, rent, storage, electricity, phone, etc.

Then, there's time to get the print made:  copying files, editing files, finding files, uploading, checking the print, packaging the print, arranging for the customer to pick up, etc.

Lastly, theres Processing time:  We process or retouch and manipulate each and every file for every print made so they can print at their best.  This takes a lot of time.  Depending on the file, we may spend up to an hour on an 8"x10"!  It's very difficult to make them all perfect and put a reasonable price on prints.  The smaller the print, the more expensive it is for us to make.  For example:  You order a 4"x6" print, that shouldn't cost too much, right?  Well, add up all the costs above and up to maybe a half hour of processing, and that 4"x6" could cost us money to make for you!  Obviously a larger print will receive more work than a smaller one, but this is just an explanation.

Wal* isn't going to spend any time processing your image, they also won't check for consistency or quality most likely.  Professional Labs have this unique attribute, maybe you've heard of them, they're called PEOPLE and they have EYES and a BRAIN to actually look at your Photograph and make corrections if necessary.  The Wal*'s of the world don't do that.

Soooo, next time you are looking at purchasing professional photography, and see what you might consider high print prices, think again, they are saving you a bundle!

-B

What are "Rights" to "reproduce"?

In the next installment of my ongoing series (well, it is, since yesterday), we will talk about "Rights" and "Copyright" and "Reproduction".  Nasty, nasty stuff.

Many people don't realize this, but if you hire a photographer for your portraits, wedding, etc., they OWN your photographs.  That is US copyright law, no two ways about it.  In the old days, the photographer would charge a small fee for the capture of the photographs and larger amounts for the prints from those photographs.  Today, there are more options available.

Yes, even if you purchase a print, the photographer still owns it!  If you scan it, it's illegal!

Today it's much easier for someone to reproduce a photograph illegally, thus we have the new pricing system.  Photographers tend to charge for their time up front and less for reprints.  If a print is simply a reprint, the print charges shouldn't be very high, however, many photographers retouch and manipulate the photographs they print (as they should) and charge for that time and skill.

That brings me to an interesting point:  Just how good are most photographers at retouching and image manipulation?  Isn't that something else you should look for in a photographer?  I mean, sure, they can capture a decent image, but can they make it shine?  This is something that can really set photographers apart.

OK, back to the doom and gloom.

Especially with Weddings, today many photographers offer a disk of images.  There are two basic types.

One is a small file suitable for E-mail, websites, Facebook, etc.  You don't want to print from it, there's just not enough information and that's not what they are intended for.  We've all tried printing a photo from a web site and it came out horrible, right?  same idea, looked great on the monitor, but not so much on paper.

The other is a high resolution file suitable for printing and this usually comes with usage rights.  These usage rights explain what you are allowed to do with these images.  Usually anything you want short of selling them, but this may vary from photographer to photographer.  The term "high resolution" is rather vague though, isn't it?  You may see some people calling them "Originals", unless you paid slightly over minimum wage for your wedding photographer, be wary of that word.  Remember we talked about retouching?  Originals have none of that, or even any work done.  Digital is much harder than film since we don't have a lab to make all the images perfect in color, contrast, and exposure.  Even slight differences image to image are quite noticable.  If the photographer doesn't take the time to correct for this, your images suffer for it.  A better word is "Proof", a proof is a working image, with some adjustments to it.  There are some photographers that offer "Edited" photographs.  This is a play on words.  The customer would take "Editing" to mean "retouching", guess what, it doesn't!  Editing is the act of sorting out the good from the bad, choosing the "keepers" so to speak.  It's a good thing to do, but it's not the same as retouching at all.  I'm sure there are photographers that offer fully retouched images from a wedding.  If they do, jump on it now because they likely won't be in business next year.

Yesterday I showed how a single wedding can use up most of a week's time, now imagine that photographer is going to spend a half hour to an hour retouching every single one of those 500 to 600 images?  Let's see, that's about 400 hours, or just over 2 weeks of utilizing every minute of the day for retouching.  Put another way, it keeps them busy equivalent to a full time job for 2 and a half months!  Not very realistic for a business model unless they charge the equivalent of a BMW for their services.

What does all this mean to you, the customer?

You have choices, lots of them.  Choices in Photography Style, Price Range, and Products Received.

Do you really want 800 high resolution photographs?  Do you know what to do with them?  Can your computer deal with it?  Do you WANT to deal with it?  Many people want the disk to keep for posterity, or "just in case".

Or, are you looking for QUALITY reprints?  An album with the best of the best in it?

Maybe you want all three?

The point is you can get what you want, how you want, at pretty much whatever price you want to pay.

In Tampa Bay alone there are over 600 Wedding Photographers, that's a lot to choose from.  Knowing a little bit about the industry helps narrow that field down a bit.

Hope this helps!

-B