by Darren Carroll

I used to tell people that I thought golf was one of the hardest sports to photograph--but when their laughter got to be too much, I started to ponder their reaction.

Maybe they had a point. I mean, the player isn't exactly moving very fast, like, say, in hockey. You don't have to make any split-second decisions about which player to follow like you might at a football game. There's not really a ball to follow like there is in basketball, and the game isn't very cerebral (at least for a photographer), like baseball. It's all pretty much right there in front of you--player stands there, people get quiet, player hits ball, player walks to ball and does it again.

So I began to reconsider. And I arrived at the conclusion that I still give people who ask today. And it's this:

Golf is, in fact, the easiest sport to shoot. But the very reasons that make it the easiest sport to shoot make it the hardest sport to shoot well.

Now, I'm not saying that I have all the insight into photographing golf well, nor do I have the market cornered on it. What I've attempted to do below is provide a bit of information that will lay the groundwork for shooting golf--the easy stuff, if you will. Once you've digested that, you'll be in a better position to take the stuff I can't give you--your eye and your talent--and apply it to your work out on the course.

Anybody can photograph golf. Really. It's very simple to just stand there and shoot people doing the same repetitive thing over and over again, pointing a lens at a guy swinging a club and firing off a salvo of motor-driven frames as soon as he wraps the club behind his head. I see lots of people doing just that every time I cover a golf tournament.

It's another thing entirely, however, to shoot golf well,


Golf - Images by Darren Carroll

THE RULES
I'm going to start off with these to get them out of the way, because everything else that I say is going to be predicated upon your following the "rules" of golf photography. They're pretty straightforward, and when you think about it, they all boil down to one thing:

Do not distract a player. Ever.

That's it. Simple as that. Golf is a much different sport to cover than just about anything else--it's rather solitary, as the player is really battling himself more than anyone else, and he has no teammates to rely on; the crowds, while large, are generally quiet, and the players expect to be able to concentrate without distraction.

If you can remember that one simple concept, the rest is all common sense. But there are some things we can put down in writing to help illustrate the point.

First, stay close to the ropes. An "arm's length" is the accepted standard, and generally speaking that works pretty well.

Next, don't move until after each player has hit. There's always a tendency to forget that there's more than one player in a group with, say, Tiger Woods, in it. As soon as he hits, gallery and photographers alike want to head to the next shot, forgetting that there still may be other players in the group who haven't hit yet.

Stay out of what's known as the player's "line." If you can draw a straight line between yourself, the hole, and the player while on the putting green, you're in the wrong place.

Maintain some situational awareness on the course. Lots of times tee boxes and putting greens are right next to each other, and the noise from your camera or your moving around while following one group can distract someone in a group nearby.  So be careful.

And finally, there's something that I like to call "minimizing your presence." In other words, do as little as you can to remind the golfer that you're there, while still being able to do your work. Don't call attention to yourself. That means, for example, that you don't shoot during a practice swing. It also means that if a golfer is lining up a putt, it's okay to squeeze off a frame. There's no reason to rattle off ten in a row.

There is one rule, though, that I feel the need to separate out on its own. In fact, I think it needs its own section devoted to it.

The rule is this: Do not fire until the player has made contact with the ball.

Again, pretty simple. And as with everything, not as simple as it sounds. Which leads us to...

SLIDELUCK POTSHOW, the brainchild of Casey Kelbaugh, is an NYC-based arts non-profit that brings people together around food and art. For nearly 10 years, they have traveled the world, pulling off spectacular evenings filled with 5 minute photography and multimedia slideshows and food prepared by attendees. It's hard to imagine that in this day and age, that people want to gather together by the hundreds to watch slideshows in a studio, park, bar, etc. But it happens month after month to great acclaim.


Photo by Allen Murabayashi

At Slideluck's shows, aspiring, undiscovered and very accomplished artists, photojournalists, painters, designers, sculptors, fashion and fine art photographers all show their work alongside one another in a relaxed, egalitarian, and spirited atmosphere. It's a very different platform for experiencing and sharing art with your community - and the next Slideluck event in NYC will be held August 6 at Canoe Studios.  

We've been to a bunch of Slideluck events and love what they're doing (their show last summer in McCarren Pool in Brooklyn was epic). We caught up with Casey and producer Alys Kenny to discuss the upcoming NYC show, and they revealed that the deadline for submissions has been extended to Thursday, July 24 -- a special extension for PhotoShelter members and friends.

We're really excited about the August NYC event - any details on what to expect?
Expect the best New York Slideluck we've ever had!  We are putting together an amazing show of talented photographers and artists.  Canoe Studios is a gorgeous new multimedia studio space in Chelsea, and the views are stunning!  We think having our first-ever New York Show on a Thursday is going to bring a new twist as well.  We are expecting a very large turnout so we strongly recommend that you RSVP as soon as possible. We also urge you to support us by becoming a Slideluck Potshow Member in advance.  Membership starts at $20 for the entire year and members will be able to avoid lines and walk right in.  

What are the key deadlines that photographers must keep in mind for this event?
Well, the extended submission deadline is on Tuesday, July 21st, but we are making a special exception for PhotoShelter members - they have until midnight on Thursday July 24th!

Detailed submissions guidelines.

Was this your first Slideluck with a theme?  Tell us about it.
Each show has a themed and an unthemed portion. Past themes have included Family, Excess, Patterns, Mistakes, Change, Anticipation, Grace, Energy, etc.  For this show, we wanted to figure out a way to talk about what's going on right now, and that's how Sabrina
Lupero-Reichert's suggestion of "2009" led us to "Now."


What do you look for when evaluating submissions?
We look for tightly-edited, consistent bodies of work around a central theme or idea that come from a unique perspective.  We also love multi-media submissions and appreciate when artists remember that the format we are curating their work for is a slideshow.  Contributors who pay special attention to the the audio component, play with the scale and sequence, and consider other elements inherent to the medium get extra brownie points!

For someone who has never submitted work - what recommendations do you have?
Consider that your audience is a room full of visually sophisticated people who like to be challenged and inspired, and who are there to see good work and have a good time- then put together a thought provoking submission accordingly!

As NYC is your homebase, how does this show differ from other events held elsewhere in the world?
Each of our shows is localized in that we are showing primarily local artists, eating the food of that place, cooked by people there and the event is attended by residents of that city!  Slideluck New York is kind of our "flagship" or showcase Slideluck that draws submissions and influences from all over the world-- which is very much consistent with New York itself.

The last event in NYC was the huge McCarren Park Pool show, right?  How has Slideluck evolved since then?
We have continued to grow, and now have programming in 41 cities globally.  We also launched our Slideluck Youth Initiative where we worked with kids in several after school programs ages 7-17 in New York City.  SLYI aims to foster creative expression and empower students through the use of photography and multimedia storytelling. In doing so, SLYI helps students develop valuable skills, enrich their lives and strengthen community.

Congrats on the recent 501c3 status [charitable status which can accept tax-deductible donations] - how will this change how you operate and generate funds?
Thank you!  Hopefully it will open up new revenue streams for us.  We are currently applying for grants, seeking funding from foundations and looking to increase corporate sponsorship. Now that we are recognized by the IRS, we hope there are many others that will be more open to supporting us.

Where does your vision take slideluck over the next few years?
We'd essentially like to keep doing what we are doing.  We are working towards getting more funding so that we will be able to bring Slideluck Potshow to all of the communities around the world that would love to have us.  When we launch our new website, all of the artists we have shown all over the world will be archived online.  It will become a rich and vibrant collection that will be an incredible resource for artists, art buyers and photo editors.  Eventually, we'd also like to expand the Slideluck Youth Initiative to many of the other communities where we are operating Slideluck.  We have many other ideas for lectures, spinoff events and plans to publish a book, among other things.  For now we're just trying to take it one step at a time!

by D.A. Wagner

Being a seasoned professional means being an expert when it comes to lighting, directing, editing and post-processing an assignment because we are experienced with all the requirements of photography production. But where do we stand when it comes to reinventing ourselves, creating a fresh, new body of work, and marketing it effectively to a specific audience we wish to solicit? How do we find our strongest trait objectively and what do we do once we know what that is? And, most importantly, how do we know it's going to be appropriate for the marketplace now?


Photo by D.A. Wagner

I labored for months thinking about these questions, not getting anywhere. I was sure that I knew what to do; I just had to do it, as they say. Problem was, I didn't. I'm too close to my work, and marketing, well, marketing isn't my strongpoint.

In Richard Sennett's current book, The Craftsmen, he writes, "The good craftsman is a poor salesman, absorbed in doing something well, unable to explain the value of what he or she is doing." This was written in the context of the London Great Exposition of 1851 as a response to what an economist of the time called, "a first exercise in mass advertising" by large companies machine-producing products. Not much has changed.

It used to be that each individual modality in our industry had its experts, but that model has been changing faster than the transistors on the computer chips of Moore's Law. Ad agencies have more in-house services than ever before, and gone are the stat houses, the typographers and type setters, the production departments with drafting tables with t-squares, razor blades and rubber cement; even the messenger services have taken a big hit. Assignment photography, too, shrank exponentially, with the ad agencies going to stock photography with a serious vengeance.

It wasn't until an APA seminar at Calumet on 22nd Street with photo consultant Selina Maitreya called, This Much I Know Is True, that I began to understand clearly the challenges I faced as they apply to the commercial photo industry.

After years of producing elaborate, complicated photography projects, and an absence from the industry, I was aware that my older work, though interesting, was not relevant in today's ever more competitive marketplace. Next, I read Selina's book, How to Succeed in Commercial Photography, Insights from a Leading Consultant, in a second effort to do it myself. Once again, I didn't. Big surprise.

It was then that I took the leap and made the decision to contact Selina. Not a small investment by any stretch of the imagination, but instead of buying a new digital camera, I hired a consultant. This would turn out to be the smartest thing I've done in my career next to buying my first computer in 1984. But, like digital, there was a learning curve.

The first assignment Selina gave me was to create a very carefully chosen swipe file of four or five images of work I admired and would "kill for," to have as my own. It was hard, winnowing down dozens of images to five. For some reason I believed my new direction should look like the old direction and the "to kill for" swipes showed it except for one image: a simple, elegant image by painter William Harnett, a trompe l'oeil painter from the 19th century whose work felt familiar and somewhat spontaneous, and in ways whimsical. He even was busted by the U.S. Government for counterfeiting, which I found wonderfully entertaining.

by Chris Owyoung

The thought crossed my mind that all concert photography tutorials say the same damn thing: "use fast glass and shoot at a necessarily high ISO. Good luck." Since that's about as useful as a hole in the head, I'll skip the basics and write about some of the topics that matter most to the existing community of music photographers.


No Doubt performs at The Bamboozle Music Festival, their first major show in 5 years. East Rutherford, NJ. Photo by Chris Owyoung

The Basics (Only three sentences, I promise.)
If you own a digital SLR and a f/2.8 or faster lens, you can get by shooting a rock concert. If you're comfortable working with RAW files and can shoot in manual mode chances are you'll come away with some great images.

So, use fast glass and shoot at a necessarily high ISO. Oh and, good luck.

Equipment: Why does it matter? What do you use?
You needn't look further than the early work of Jim Marshall or Bob Gruen to know that equipment does not matter. A camera is only as good as the photographer holding it and a bad photo taken with a $8,000 camera is still a bad photo.

Having better equipment only makes the work easier. The only critical reason to upgrade your gear is if your current equipment is preventing you from creating the kind of image you're after. Your next "upgrade" could be a $15,000 digital back or a $5 disposable depending on your photographic vision.

All things being equal, photo editors do not care what equipment you use. You should consider the entire system of lenses, bodies and accessories offered by each company and choose a camera system that will grow with you.

I use the following questions to inform my own buying decisions:

Does the company make the equipment that I'll need a year or two from now?
Can I easily rent the equipment I need but don't own?
Is there a strong market for used equipment should I need to sell or upgrade again?
Should I upgrade now or wait a few months?

My current kit includes:

• Nikon D3 digital SLR
• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens

 
Tom Morello - Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Street Sweeper Social Club. Photo by Chris Owyoung

Rent what you Need:
If you have internet access and a mailing address, there's no reason to ever go into a job without the proper equipment. With a day or two lead time, almost every lens or camera body from Nikon or Canon can be rented from reliable online rental companies like LensProToGo. Some lenses can be rented for as little as $15/day.

Getting Your First Photo Pass:
If you're starting out like I did, your first photo pass probably won't be All-Access for Aerosmith. My advice is to start local - take your camera to small, camera friendly venues and hone your skills. Once you've developed a photographic style and a set of good images, approach local publications with your work.


Hayley Williams - Paramore. Photo by Chris Owyoung

How do you find Publications/Assignments?
The easiest way to find publications to shoot for is to search the internet for concert reviews in your area. Once you have a list of magazines, newspapers and websites that are interested in concerts, assignments could be just an email or phone call away.

Above all, be persistent, polite and professional. Talent is important but it's not a substitute for being reliable and a pleasure to work with.

How Do you Find Press Contacts:
If your editor doesn't have the contact, your first stop should be the band's websites (Facebook, Myspace, record label and management). Look for contact information for the press representative, or anyone associated with the label or management. 

If no contact information is listed, a simple google search should lead you to an email address, mailing address or phone number to contact someone who can point you in the right direction. The "advanced search" link on Google (www.google.com) works wonders.

Useful search terms:

• artist name
• publicity
• pr
• client list
• tour dates
• record label name
• management name

Finally, don't be afraid to pick up the phone and talk to people.

Randy Santos specializes in Washington DC stock photography. Randy does not license his images through stock agencies and makes a very healthy living selling directly to clients. His images appear in coffee table books, calendars, hotels and restaurants, and corporate environments worldwide. We caught up with Randy to learn about how he succeeds in a highly competitive niche, and his approach to managing and marketing his photography business. We found Randy's advice and experiences pretty inspiring.

Where did you learn photography?  And what did you do before starting dcstockimages.com?
I've been shooting for a long long time - I started in high school but never had a formal photography education.  I'm 100% self taught, and at times a little self conscious about that.  But, I'm fortunate to have learned on a Canon FTB - when everything was completely manual and to be good, you needed to really learn the fundamentals of photography.

I've been blessed with an overstimulated, hyperactive brain. So I look around and think I see things differently - in terms of shape, light, patterns, and composition.  The camera is a tool for capturing what I am seeing.  This unique perspective has enabled me to (hopefully) become a good photographer. Lord knows what I'd do otherwise!


Photo by Randy Santos

I started shooting commercially at age 19 - when I talked my way into working for a well known commercial studio in DC.  Pretty quickly, I went from being a reckless teenager to photographing Ronald Reagan weekly, dignitary visits, and Capitol Hill. This was really valuable experience for me - mostly because I was exposed to the old-time DC photographers, and from them I learned real world business operations, and how to deal with clients professionally.  These lessons stuck with me and they're a big part of how I do business today.


Photo by Randy Santos

What led you to start dcstockimages.com?
I started my own business just over 20 years ago, initially focused strictly on local corporate and PR photography. I kept myself busy doing what I love, capturing creative images around Washington DC. But, it was hard to market and sell this stuff before the Internet came along.  About four years ago, I had some DC pictures on one of my websites, and got a call from an art buyer, who loved my photos because they featured DC but shot at much more interesting angles than typical DC postcard photos. They wanted to see more, so I shared the body of work I'd been developing over time.  This turned into a major hotel décor project - with my photos printed and hung throughout the lobby and guestrooms. The revenue I generated was a real eye opener, and I realized a way to turn this experience into an opportunity.   

After this project, I talked with the art buyer some more, keyed in on why she felt my images were different, and learned more about her needs.  Then I started listening to more art buyers, understood their own challenges, and saw the opportunity for a specialized business.  So I gathered up the images I had taken of DC, learned a little bit about writing code (and I am as low tech as they come) and bought every domain I could think of related to DC images http://dcstockimages.com/, and started getting my images out there.  Thanks to the web and a few traits I believe are critical for success, this thing blossomed and bloomed like you wouldn't believe.  

The Michael Jackson Memorial was the largest memorial service since Princess Diana's memorial in the 90s with an estimated television audience of 31 million people in the US and an additional several million online. Of course, photos from the event were published in newspapers, websites and on television.


From left Janet Jackson, Paris Michael Katherine, LaToya Jackson, Jermaine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson I attend a memorial service for their brother and father, music legend Michael Jackson, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California on July 7, 2009.  AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS


In anticipation of the event, several thousand requests were fielded by the Jackson family PR agency, Sunshine Sachs & Associates, for the seven photo positions within the Staples Center. As is typical for large events with limited photo positions, the organizers decided upon a "pool" solution where the major wire services would gain access in exchange for distribution their images to the media outlets that could not gain access.

On Friday, July 3, Andrew Gombert, a photographer and photo editor with the wire service European Pressphoto Agency, was tasked with finding a distribution solution by the next day that would allow several thousand media agencies to view and download the pool images. The timeline was brief because the PR agency had to notify the other media outlets on how they could access the images.

As a long time PhotoShelter user, Andrew decided to open a PhotoShelter Pro Account, and incorporated the following workflow.

• Seven media organizations were credentialed for photography:  AP, Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Getty Images, AFP, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times
• Each photographer had a "runner" who was responsible for taking the photographers cards, ingest and  captioning and, transmittal to his/her picture desk
• The picture desk was responsible for editing the images, inserting meta data, and transmitting them to 1) the pool members major wires, and 2) FTPing them into PhotoShelter
• The PhotoShelter account was set up so that any FTPd images went directly into a password protected gallery (the password and URL had been previously circulated by the PR agency to all the media outlets that were not credentialed)
• The meta data was extracted upon upload and redisplayed with the thumbnails and larger images, and the high resolution images could then be downloaded online.
• Over 23,000 images were downloaded in the 24 hours following the event.

Andrew told me that "the process of setting up the PhotoShelter account and allowing access to thousands of organizations couldn't have been easier." We're excited that people like Andrew continue to find innovative ways to use PhotoShelter to manage their photo workflows.

RIP MJ. Shamon!

Today we're proud to announce July's PhotoShelter featured photographers, whose diverse and inspiring images will be displayed in the "Images" tab of the PhotoShelter homepage slideshow throughout the month.

Have a look at July's 20 winners.  We couldn't help but notice a whole bunch of water images - it just may be our subconscious desire to get out of the office and enjoy the summer weather. 



Other timely images include:

• Jock Fistick's photo of Michael Jackson from the 1988 Bad tour
• William Alix' image of Iran election protests in Paris
• And some summer delights, like Gordon Stillman's grilled sausage (mmmm)
  

Like what you see? Embed our July featured slideshow in your own website or blog by clicking the up arrow in the lower right of the above widget.

Want to submit your images for consideration? Here's how. Images must be submitted by the 20th of the month, and winners are posted on the first Tuesday of the following month.

If you've been following the development of HTML over the past 15 years, then you're probably aware that the wizards the World Wide Web Consortium have been trying to separate "content" from "display." The CSS Zen Garden is the most widely known example site to illustrate how you go from this:



to this without changing any HTML code -- only the CSS file.



In our webinar on manual customization, we talk about tools like the Firebug Add-on for Firefox which helps web developers understand the structure of a page and how to use CSS to modify it. PhotoShelter user, Karen Joslin, took the information to heart and figured out how to change our Scribble style and make it her own with a custom border and logo.

We're proud to announce 2 recipients for July's Photoshelter Stimulus Plan Photography Grants. Congrats to the Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference and the Belarus Center of Photography's Summer Photopracticum in documentary photography. Both events are happening in July, and both advance photography in special ways that we're excited to help support.


Photo by Bill Crandall

The Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference will be held July 17 & 18, 2009 at Western Washington University. The annual event brings together many of the Pacific Northwest's leaders and students in the field of visual journalism, including video and still photographers, multimedia producers, agents, and online editors, to share their expertise in a comfortable setting that fosters professional growth.

This year, the BVJC event organizers have offered to waive the admission fee for any visual journalists who have been laid off in the past year. PhotoShelter's Stimulus Plan funding is helping make this possible.  PhotoShelter member and Sporting News photographer Jay Drowns applied for the grant to make this worthwhile event possible.

This year's guest speakers include Michel du Cille, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and assistant managing editor for photography at The Washington Post, Seattle Times photojournalist Alan Berner, Getty Images photojournalist John Moore; Meredith Birkett, senior multimedia editor for special projects at MSNBC.com; Scott McKiernan, CEO/founder of ZUMA Press and publisher of DOUBLEtruck Magazine and zReportage.com; multimedia photojournalist Wes Pope, most recently at The Rocky Mountain News; Heidi de Laubenfels, deputy managing editor for strategy and product development at The Seattle Times; and Jim Seida, senior multimedia producer at msnbc.com.
 
Half way across the globe in Minsk, Belarus, the "Visual Documents" Photopracticum is happening July 1 - 8. The workshop will gather a team of outstanding documentary photographers for an exhaustive workshop designed to teach documentary technique.  According to PhotoShelter member Bill Crandall, who will serve as one of the event instructors, this is the first documentary workshop to be held at this new photo school, and much needed as documentary style has not yet taken hold among photographers in this region.  The Belarus Center of Photography will use the the PhotoShelter Stimulus Plan Grant to offset expenses associated with bringing in the team of internationally recognized instructors. We're really excited to see international participation in support of photography.

Amid the hubbub generated by Michael Jackson's death, Farrah Fawcett's passing got a little buried in the news. I personally remember sitting in my parent's bedroom watching Charlie's Angels as a kid and thinking, "This is the most amazing show ever." Of course, The Sopranos turned out to be the most amazing show, but Charlie's Angels is surely a close second.

You can't talk about Farrah's legacy without thinking about the poster. And I ran across a great little interview with the photographer who shot Farrah's iconic image, Bruce McBroom. We should all be so lucky.