Advertising Photography in the New Age

Family?

As an advertising photographer in Los Angles California, I am called upon to illustrate concepts in my advertising and editorial photography.  The first read should be clear and understandable while there might and hopefully are many other layers and some subtexts with the image.  So what is up with this image?

The first read is that of a women, probably a mother with two boys, probably her sons and brother to each other.  There is no one else in the image so we start with these conclusions.   Now we start to read into the image based on our own biases.

Where is the father?  Is he just outside of frame or hidden by the horizon? Or is this a modern single parent family?  What else is hidden by the sand?  What has caught the boy’s attention?  This brings up why is the view such that we cannot see what the boys are looking at?  Where are they…? at the beach…?in the desert…?  The clothing give so no clue so we are left wondering.

Some advertising and editorial images can be used just to capture the viewer’s attention and bring them into the story told by the text.  I would allow comments and would enjoy them except for the crazy spammers.

Free Webinar: Lightroom for Everyone

As a professional photographer in Los Angeles county, California I’m always ready to learn more about the tools I use.  Please note that David Riecks is giving away his very handy Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog.  The information below is from Rob Sylvan.

Lightroom for Everyone

I’m very excited to have the opportunity to conduct a free webinar aimed at helping new Lightroom users learn how to get started on the right foot, avoid common pitfalls, and become more efficient with Lightroom; my absolute favorite photo workflow tool. We’ve only got about 100 seats left open, so head on over to  register now. The webinar is going to be streamed live on Tuesday, October 8th, 10-11 a.m. PST / 1-2 p.m. EST.

If a free Lightroom webinar was not enough reason to sign up we’ll also be giving away a free subscription to the awesome Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog (thanks to David Riecks) and a full license to Lightroom 5 (courtesy of Adobe). Details of the giveaways will be given out during the webinar, and you have to be registered to be eligible to win. So head over to the Lightroom for Everyone sign up page and register!

This webinar is being sponsored by Stocksy United, which is an amazing stock photography co-op that is creating a sustainable business model for both contributors and customers by providing exclusive content at competitive prices that is fresh, authentic, and doesn’t look like the stock photography you can find everywhere else. I’m honored to be a co-op member and hope you will check them out the next time you need stock photos for your project.

Professional Photographers Find Value in DV Expo

Leewhitephotography.com composition

As a professional photographer in Los Angeles, California, I’m always looking for ways to improve my photography whether it is still photography or video.  DV Expo was an important resource for professional photographers who want to learn more about producing video.  That was the obvious goal of the Expo.  But there were two sessions that I attended that would be helpful to photographers with shooting stills as well.

On Wednesday, I attend Richard Harrington’s session on Timelapse photography.  It gave me some interesting insights into using long exposures with great depth of field to give a great feeling of motion in Timelapse productions.  Timelapse is a tool that any photographer should have in their skill-set.

Another session I found had some very useful information was Robbie Carman’s all day Friday class on color correction and color grading.  Many of the tools and techniques related directly to handling still photography as well as video.  Some of the most important ideas were that our ability to adapt in seeing color makes it important to have the right environment and not to work to long on an individual image.  Creating a neutral environment with the right lighting is important to judging color and reducing eye fatigue.  Our ability to automatically adapt to new color bias makes it important not to work too long on an individual image while color correcting.  Rather it is better to work on color correcting an image for a short time and then come back to it to have a fresh judgment.

I recommend you consider getting as much information in the fast changing world of digital imaging in both still or motion.  DV Expo is one of the resources you should consider whether it is checking out the exhibit and/or one of more of the sessions.