Teenage Barrel Racing Champion - Chevy Assignment

Recently, Chevrolet asked be to complete a photo set for their latest website RoadWereOn.Chevrolet.Com. Take a look! This year is Chevrolet's 100th anniversary.


I had a great time photographing 15-year old MacKenzie and her dad, Karl, who use their family's Chevy 2500 pickup truck to haul MacKenzie's horse, Wrangler, to an equestrian park nearly every week so she can practice for her rodeo competition in pole bending, barrel racing, and goat tying. I hope you'll take a look at the complete series on the Chevy site.

Chevrolet asked several regional photographers around the country to give their photo interpretation of how people use their Chevy's in real life. It was a fun gig. (Tweet #Chevy100 to see how other photographers interpreted their assignment). One of my favorites was "Girl's Day Out" by a photographer named "Rania".

How can I get cool photo assignments like this? Everyone of these photographers, myself included, appear to be active in social media: In most cases they had a Flickr account, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and a blog -- and they are active in most of these areas. This is how photographers get seen in today's marketplace. (There are plenty of other photographers who are more talented than I am, but you can't find them when the job needs to be done ;-)

You can also view my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr to see more of "My Vision".

MoonScapes - Photographing a full moon with an evening landscape

Here's a photo I took earlier this week: a big yellow moon as it passes through a cloud, surrounded by a cold, blue winter sky. Only five minutes later the same full moon begins to set behind the Oquirrh Mountains, near Salt Lake City, Utah.


My "Nightscape" Moon Photography Tips: If you want to record good detail in the clouds and landscape near the moon, you need to know two important re-occurring facts: 1. The night before the full moon, the sun sets just as the moon is rising; and 2. the morning of the full moon, the moon sets just as the sun is starting to rise. During these two periods, there is just enough ambient light from the setting and rising sun to give detail to the surrounding landscape -- otherwise, it is too dark, and the contrast range is too great to record anything but blackness around the moon -- like you see in these two photos:

You can't have it both ways: either you get a washed out (overexposed moon) in order to see the clouds and surrounding landscape detail -- or you get a correctly exposed moon, and lose all the surrounding detail -- that is, unless you follow these "Nightscape" tips.

Moon Charts: I use the Old Farmer's Almanac moon phase, rise, and set charts to plan my shoots. (All times are based on sea level, so they must be adjusted slightly for mountainous terrain -- the moon will set sooner because of mountains, and the sunrise will be delayed because of mountains, and etc.) Using these charts, I can often get at least one moon rise and one moon set per month (weather permitting) that allow for good, full moon photography.

An example of how I did it: Based on my Zip Code, the full moon was to take place on January 9, 2012 at 12:32 AM. The sun was suppose to rise on this day at 7:51 AM, and the moon was scheduled to set at 7:54 AM. Because the eastern mountains around Salt Lake City are about 6,000 feet higher than the valley floor, I figured (by experience) the sunrise would be delayed about 30 minutes. And because the western mountains are about 3,000 feet higher than the valley floor, I estimated the moon would set about 15 minutes early. I figured right on both accounts. This photo was taken at 7:30 AM, with just enough predawn twilight behind me to add detail to the western sky (change it from black to a dark blue) and western mountains.

Mirror Lock-up. One other important thing: Even with a sturdy tripod and a remote release, the vibration from your mirror going up just before your shutter release can blur or degrade your shot. That's because the magnifications are so great (12X in this shot) and the shutter speeds are so slow (about 1/4 second in this case). Read your manual on how to do this for your camera. Once it is set through your menu, the first press of the shutter release will lock up the mirror, and the second press will release the shutter, and return the mirror. Even with a remote release, you should wait about three seconds for the vibrations to dampen before pressing the release the second time. So many things to remember! I also find I have to manually focus, and set all my exposures manually for best results. (For super accurate focus, I switch to Live View through my LCD screen, and magnify it to 10X. Once set, I switch back to regular view to conserve battery power.)

Technical info on top two photos: Canon EOS 7D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens @ 400mm (35mm equivalent is 12X)
f8 @ 1/4 sec ISO 100

You can also view my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr to see more of "My Vision".

Using Digital Negative (DNG) to archive your raw image files

Five, 10, or even 40 years from now, will you be able to open one of the proprietary, raw image files from your digital camera? You will, if you have converted your raw camera files to DNG (.dng).

Why shoot in raw? Raw image files are sometimes called digital negatives, as they fulfill the same role as negatives in film photography: that is, the negative is not directly usable as an image, but has all of the information needed to create an image. Like a photographic negative, a raw digital image will usually have a wider dynamic range (16-bits per color channel) and color gamut than the eventual final image format (usually a JPEG, or .JPG, which is an 8-bit image). The purpose of raw image formats is to save, with minimum loss of information, data obtained from the camera's sensor. Here are three examples (one, two, three) of why you should be saving your camera's raw image format file -- if you aren't already.

Reading the raw file. Nearly every time I have purchased a new digital camera, I have had to purchase the latest version of Photoshop, or a new raw converter plug-in in order to read and open the new raw image files produced by that camera. Examples of proprietary raw image file format extensions are .CR2 (Canon), .NEF (Nikon), .ORF (Olympus), .PEF (Pentax), and .RW2 (Panasonic).

Free raw file converter. A year after I purchased my last DSLR, I could not open the raw camera files with my current version of Photoshop. I was not ready to upgrade to Photoshop CS5 (and pay another $200), because I had just done that the year before, when I upgraded from CS3 to CS4. A friend suggested that I get Adobe's free DNG Converter, and convert all my new camera raw files to the universal DNG format, which is supported by all the versions of Photoshop (back to the original CS), Elements (back to version 3), and Lightroom.

Reduced file size. Not only is the free Adobe Digital Negative Converter fast in its conversion, but it typically reduces the file size of my Canon ".CR2" files by 20% when they are converted over to the ".dng" format. I am now, systematically, taking all my old CR2 files, converting them to DNG, and throwing away the old CR2 versions.

Archival peace of mind. The best reason to convert your camera raw files to the universal DNG format is long-term compatibility. Because cameras can use many different raw formats -- the specifications for which are not publicly available -- this means that not every raw file can be read by a variety of software applications. As a result, the use of these proprietary raw files as a long-term archival solution carries risk.

DNG is an open raw image format owned by Adobe. DNG is based on the TIFF/EP standard format. Exploitation of the file format is royalty free. It was launched in 2004 after requests by many photographers and photo trade associations (i.e. the American Society of Media Photographers, or ASMP) that there be a universal raw format standard. The US Library of Congress recommends DNG as the preferred alternative to other "less desirable" raw image formats. In their "Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow" (dpBestflow) project, ASMP (funded by the US Library of Congress) stated that "DNG files have proven to be significantly more useful than the proprietary raw files in our workflow." With this kind of support and recommendation, we should expect the DNG format to be around for a long, long time!

You are invited to see my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr (based on popularity stats).

500px vs. Flickr - a constructive review

Another title I could have used was, "How I received 1,500 views in just 1-hour on 500px.com" -- and that is compared to only 453 views that I received on Flickr, over a period of 28 days for the same Double Arch photo (see below)! The above screen capture shows my hour of fame on 500px's "Popular" first page.

The big difference between the two is Social Networking. Flickr is more about social interaction with your photos, whereas 500px is more about showcasing your images. I reached the most popular position on 500px within 18 hours, without having enlisted a single follower or contact. By comparison, Flickr's Interestingness algorithms often reward social networking more often than quality.

Despite my beginner's luck on 500px.com, I continue to find many endearing things about Flickr.com that I like and appreciate. For a more complete comparison of 500px and Flickr, go to this page on my Flickr photostream.

You are invited to see my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr (based on popularity stats).

New book featuring photography of Grand Teton NP

After selling thousands of my photos over the years for use in books published by others, I finally published my own photo book, featuring my vision of Grand Teton National Park. You can see a preview of this 40-page book by clicking on the book below. To see the book full screen (highly recommended), click on the button just to the left of the blue "blurb" icon. (The pages turn by clicking the tabs on the left and right of the book.)

Grand Teton National Park - Photography by Royce Bair

My purpose for this first photo book: Although this is a beautiful little book, I doubt if I'll sell very many copies. That's because self-published photo books via a print-on-demand publisher such Blurb are about 50% more expensive to produce than books produced by traditional printing. The quality is just as good as a regular book, but the printing-on-demand costs for this 40-page, 7x7 inches book is almost 16 dollars for soft cover and almost 28 dollars for a hard cover edition. I have Blurb add on a profit for me of only $4.00 and $7.00, respectively -- making the final sale price of $19.95 for soft cover and $34.95 for hard cover.

I suspect most of the purchases of this book will be made by me. Some will be used as gifts, but most will be used as stock photography catalogs, where I will give the books to prospective photo buyers, i.e. photo editors and art directors of magazines that I have worked with in the past.

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Prints and image downloads (stock photo licensing) of photos in my new book can be ordered at my SmugMug website.

You can see a daily blog of my photos on my Flickr photostream or view a slide show of my ''most interesting'' images.
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PPUBLISHING YOUR OWN BOOK: Most print-on-demand (POD) photo books are not produced for volume resale. The majority photos books are personalized records of weddings and family events, where only one or two books are ordered for the couple or family members.

Despite the greater expense, digital POD is now allowing many photographers to self-publish photo books for resale, where they would never have attempted to do so before. That's because Blurb and similar POD companies have made self-publishing less daunting, with low initial investment and easy-to-use, online layout software.

Sales and marketing: Many photographers who decide to self-publish through POD publishers, like Blurb, will let the publisher to handle all the sales and shipping (and Blurb has one of the more established systems for helping you announce your new book, market it, and track your book sales). Other, more adventuresome, photographers will pre-print small quantities of books and take them to book fairs or try to place them directly in book stores.

Pricing: While most POD publishers offer discounts for volume orders (i.e. a 15% discount on orders of 50 books), your costs are usually still higher than traditional offset printing (where the initial print runs are 1,000 or more copies). This means that your POD-made photo books will probably be priced slightly higher than traditionally produced books, or you can mark them up less in the beginning while you build interest in your book.

Testing the water before jumping in: The biggest obstacle that POD has overcome is the initial investment. Photo book publishing once required making an initial offset print run of at least 1,000 to 3,000 books (not mention the costs of typesetting, scanning, and color separation for all the pictures). This initial investment usually was over $10,000 -- just to find out IF there was any interest in your book idea!

With print-on-demand, a self-publisher can test the interest in a book before making a huge upfront investment through a traditional printer. If one's hope is to get published through a traditional publisher (and their distribution channels), starting with a limited number of POD-made books can help you get some credible sales information before approaching the publisher and asking them for a book contract.

Other photo book POD publishers: Blurb was one of the earliest and is probably the largest, but there are now dozens of choices. Here's a great review by PhotoBookGirl.com of Blurb vs. MyPublisher vs. Snapfish vs. MPix.

Definition of ''Photo Books'': Please keep in mind that we are talking about "photo books" -- books with lots of full color photos. If you want to publish a book with just text and a few black and white photos, your costs for traditional printing or print-on-demand will be about one-half of the prices I have been quoting. Two good POD publishers for B/W are Lulu and Diggypod.

You are invited to see my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr (based on popularity stats).

Flickr EXPLORE and how to get Explored on Flickr

Flickr is the world's most popular social media site for photographers. Explore is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000! Getting Explored can greatly increase that image's exposure to the world.

For a professional photographer, like myself, this visibility can translate into income. One of my images was recently Explored to the #15 position (out of 500). Within a few days it had received over 4,000 views, and the Google search engine had placed it in the #1 position (based on the keywords associated with it).

How to find out if your photo was Explored by Flickr: Big Huge Labs has a web-based app for that, called "Scout".

How to get explored on Flickr: Flickr says, "There are lots of elements that make something 'interesting' (or not) on Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr."

The flickr group, Secrets of Explore has discussions on what are the measurements of Flickr's "interestingness". They have also included a link to Flickr's Patent Application that explains how Explore chooses images (if you want to be totally bored and confused ;o) .

Fellow Flickrite, Thomas Hawk, has several suggestions from his Digital Connection blog about gaining popularity on Flickr (much of which applies to Interestingness):

"1) Take great pictures. ...quality does matter. If you want people to look at your stuff, make your stuff worth looking at. 2) You get one shot a day...that matters. Choose it wisely. Make sure that the last shot you upload is your best. ...If you upload more than 5 at a time make sure your last five are your best and your last one is the best of the best. 3) Despite the top secretness formula of interestingness, it is really not that complicated to understand in broad terms. Your photos are deemed interesting when they have activity. When people tag your photos, comment on your photos, view your photos, leave notes on your photos, and especially when they favorite your photos you increase your interestingness rank. 4) Fav lots of photos. Be very liberal with your favs. ...If you see a photo you like on Flickr, fav it. Don’t be shy. It’s as easy as clicking on the little star above someone’s photo. Favs mean more to other Flickr users than comments or tags or notes or anything. 5) Post your photo to lots of groups and participate ...Don’t spam the groups, but if you have a photo of a bridge, put it in the bridge group. 7) Tag your photos religiously. Flickr allows users to search by tags (and especially to then rank their search by interestingness). 8) Above all, have fun on Flickr. Never take it too seriously."

[Note: Numbers used are mine, and do not completely correlate with Thomas' blog article.]

From the Good 'ish Explore Missed group comes this quick advice:

1. Choose your uploads wisely. Uploading 5 images a day won't help that 1 amazing shot.
2. Tags! Tag your images and let search do it's thing! SEO sucks!
3. Don't put your image in more than 5 groups, the more groups you are in, the less chance your photo will be explored. [Make note that Thomas Hawk's advice of posting to "lots" of groups is more about gaining "popularity" on Flickr and not about getting Explored.]
4. Love people in hopes that they will return the favor and love you back. Generosity is key.

[Most of this mirrors what Hawk has said, but in fewer words. They just forgot the most important ingredient: Take great photos!]

Explore Don'ts:
1. Do not re-post your image over and over again on the same day (moving it up in time so that more of your contacts will see it and comment on it). It's okay to delete an image and re-post it the same day, or to take an old image and re-post it under a new title, to see if you think you can develop more interest in that image. What Interestingness will ban you on is using the Actions > View EXIF info > edit "Posted to Flickr" time to re-post your image on Flickr to the current time in order to have it reappear to your Contact over and over again throughout the day. This is a form of spamming. I do this occasionally on old photos that I want to revive (if I think it never received the exposure it deserved), but don't do on new photos or Interestingness will ban you.

2. Do not place your photos in the groups that force you to comment on images within the group, i.e. the "Post 1, Comment on 5 - or get banned" groups. Groups like 1-2-3 are okay because they ask you to make three comments for every image you post, but they do not require you to make those comments.

3. Do not post your photo to more than five (5) groups. This has already been mentioned, but it is a good idea to post your image in at least two or three groups for Interestingness sake. BTW, posting to a few more than five groups will not completely ban you from Explore, but it will lower your Interestingness score. I often increase my number of groups after the image is no longer eligible for Explore, because placing the photo with the right group (look for group names using keywords that describe your image) can often increase it's search engine rankings.

Thank you! By the way, let me thank all my Contacts for helping me get Explored yesterday -- that's the sixth time in the past 14 days!



(The top image adapted from 'Stars, Milky Way, Jackson Lake, Grand Teton NP'.)

Grand Teton Pinnacle Sunset

Last week I spent four days photographing in Grand Teton National Park. This area always rejuvenates and lifts my spirits, so I wanted to illustrate that feeling in a photo (click on image to see larger).

In this photo the rays and shafts of light are dancing behind the peak of the Grand Teton mountain (13,775 ft (4,199 m) as the sun begins to set directly behind it. This was photographed just as the sun dropped behind the peak. Because the mountains rise almost 7,000 feet above the valley floor, it will be another 30 - 40 minutes before the setting sun starts to cast its orange and red colors in the sky. This is why the sky is still blue near the corners of the photo.

Technical Stuff: When the sun is starting to set behind a peak, you can often run or drive to a position that will put you in the shadow of the peak. Just a few feet or a few seconds can really make a difference. Here's an example of the lens flare that happens if the sun isn't completely covered by the peak:


Although this can be pretty in its own right, it's not exactly what I had planned--but I like experimenting anyway, just to see what I can create.

Controlling Lens Flare: In this photo of the grazing horses, the sun was just above the mountains. Lens flare would have greatly degraded this image if I hadn't used a gobo to keep the sun from glaring into the lens. Lens hoods are not enough when you are aiming the camera this close to the sun. Gobos are like the visor that you drop down behind the windshield in your car when you are driving into the sun. Click on this photo and read the "Technical Stuff" under the Flickr photo if you want to learn more about gobos and French flags.



You are invited to see my "Most Interesting" images on Flickr (based on popularity stats).