New England based Visual Storyteller

Tag: planning

Thinking about organizing the personal project (a video)

My favorite kind of photography is the personal project (or photo-essay.) The thing I like the least about them is the time and effort required to keep such projects organized. But, I need to be organized in order to execute the projects efficiently, to promote the work to potential funding sources and exhibitors, as well as to have the same work reviewed and published. I made this podcast explaining how I organize my personal projects. Read More

Safety tips for working in less developed countries

I work a lot in the developing world, partly because my wife is from India. Before we met, I was also working a lot in the nether-reaches of the globe because personal projects and paying work took me there. A friend just asked me if I had any tips he could incorporate into his working process as he heads off to Mexico. The challenge for me in writing this blog was not coming up with advice but rather with figuring out how to explain those things that I do almost automatically when I am photographing in places like India, Guatemala, Vietnam or Turkey. Read More

Buying various types of camera insurance

A friend is heading off to India on a fascinating assignment. Besides giving him advice on India, our conversation turned to the potential risks there. Inevitably, (and wisely) this led us to the question of insurance, particular in terms of cameras. I walked him through the various types of insurance I have. As I did that, I realized how often I mentioned the mistakes that I made over the years, as I figured out what to do in terms of insurance. Wanting to save him (and others) from the problems I encountered, I transformed that conversation into this blog entry. Read More

An impromptu course in design of web-sites for photographers

These days, all photographers, from commercial/documentary to portrait/fine-art, live and die by their web sites. That should mean that most websites for photographers would be built with the same goal, showing the photographer’s work to its best advantage. You also would think that an equally important goal would be making those same sites easy to navigate and very user friendly. Based on my recent experience reviewing 13 photographer’s web-sites, those assumptions would be largely wrong. Read More

Top ten keys to be a successful photojournalist (Part two)

I just wound up an interesting assignment in California. I wrote the first half of this two-part blog entry right after the first day of the project. Now that I have finished and I am writing the second half of the entry, certain points I wanted to share are even clearer to me than when I started. Read More

Top ten keys to be a successful photojournalist (Part one)

I am starting an interesting assignment in California. So far, it has been a lot of fun, but it has also been a great deal of hard work. To be honest, because I do not work on as many assignments as I once did, I was worried I would be rusty. In fact it has been quite the opposite. All the skills I developed over the decades that I was doing assignment work came back to me easily, a bit like riding a bicycle (or motorcycle.) Thinking about them led me to writing them down as a blog post. Read More

The making of one image (a video)

This podcast explores the process of making one image, from recognizing the potential of the situation for a photograph, through composing and metering of the photograph and then actually making a variety of images. Read More