The blog, The Achilles Effect, has a post showing the frequency of words that are used in TV ads for toys marketed to boys vs. those  for girls.

The author, Crystal Smith, took the word frequency lists and ran them through Wordle, a web site and app that makes a graphic out of a word frequency list.

Most frequent words in girl toy ads.

Link to Wordle page for this graphic.

Most frequent words in boy toy ads.

Link to Wordle page for this graphic.

The debate over nature vs nurture when it comes to raising boys and girls will never be settled completely. There are obvious differences between the genders, and society steers each gender in different ways.

When I played with GI Joe figures as a kid, was I playing with dolls, or acting out the power struggles of war? Probably both.

My daughter graduated from art school last year and is pursuing freelance work in the video and photography industries.

While this is not a letter to her specifically, her decision inspired me to write about starting out in a creative services business. I am a still photographer, and I have worked as a freelancer for most of my career. Some of these tips are specific to photography and video production, but many apply to all freelancers in the creative professions, whether graphic and web design or other fields.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series. Here are links to Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4, and Part 5.

Be found. Have a web site, business cards and mobile email.

I. Basics to be in business

1. Be reachable

Have a cell phone that receives email. If someone can’t reach you, they will contact the next person on their list. Return emails, phone calls and text messages promptly.

2. Record a legitimate voicemail greeting

Include your name and speak clearly; you want a person with work to want to call you back.

3. Use an email address not tied to a specific ISP

Have your own domain name, or use Gmail or an equivalent. This will allow you to keep your email address when you switch internet providers.

4. Maintain a web site

Nowadays a web site is as important as a business card. Make sure your phone number and email address are visible on every page. If your site shows up as “under construction”, you fail. A home page is enough to start, but to maximize impact include great examples of your work.

5. Have a business card

Make it creative but readable.

6. Create and use a contact database

It can be as simple as Address Book on a Mac, Microsoft Outlook on a PC, or Google contacts in Gmail. I use Address Book and salesforce. Whether it’s simple or complex, have a place in your computing world where you keep people’s names, phone numbers and email addresses. It’s also helpful if the database syncs with your phone.

7. Be ready to talk money when somebody calls with a job

Know what you charge for a day’s work. Do not say “Yes” without talking price. If you don’t know market rates in your city, ask others. Know what you normally charge, but don’t be afraid to ask the photographer what his or her budget is. The same photographer may some have jobs with an editorial budget (lower) and others with an advertising budget (higher).

Read the other parts of this series.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series. Here are links to Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4, and Part 5.

Look for Part 2 next Monday.

Snow on April Fool's Day, view from my yard in Havertown, PA

This week I have been trying to dream up a humorous and believable April Fool’s Day blog post, but I haven’t come up with one. Instead Mother Nature has provided the perfect April Fool’s event, snow. Here it is April and it’s snowing in Philadelphia. The snow isn’t sticking but it is keeping Spring at bay.

As a kid I always loved April Fool’s Day pranks. One year when I was about ten years old, I woke up early and switched the contents of the sugar bowl and the salt shaker. My dad proceeded to put salt in his coffee and sugar on his eggs. My younger brother spooned salt onto his cereal. Salty coffee and cereal taste terrible. My parents were not amused, but I sure was.

It has been barely more than a full year since we migrated our blog from Blogger to WordPress. The experience has been overall positive (with the expected growing pains and hiccups in between). I think it is appropriate to celebrate with a quick tip about how to streamline the workflow of adding images to your own blog entries.

Luc Renambot’s plugin Dossier de Presse works by giving Lightroom the ability to automatically upload exported images to your WordPress blog. Lightroom has an excellent Export function that allows for saving presets and the real power comes in combining the power of these presets with the Dossier de Presse plugin.

Lightroom Export dialogue using Dossier de Presse plugin

Once Dossier de Presse is installed in Lightroom you can create a new Export Preset using the plugin. First set the “Export To” dropdown to “Dossier de Presse” and then fill out the rest of the export parameters to set the size, compression, and sharpening of the image to export. The final panel requires entering the address of the blog and then a valid login and password.

Selecting multiple images in Lightroom for WordPress Export

Selecting multiple images and then choosing the correct Export Preset makes very quick work of uploading images directly to the WordPress Media Library. You can skip the steps of exporting the images to some temporary folder, navigating through the WordPress web interface to the Media Library, finding the export folder through the upload dialogue, etc. With Dossier de Presse the images will be comfortably waiting in the Media Library ready to be inserted into your next blog entry.

At Renninger’s Antiques Market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, I purchased some old photographs from a vendor. I paid five dollars for this tintype. Once I started examining it, I wanted to know: When was this photograph taken? Who are the people in the photograph?

Tintype of Henry Stehman and John Stehman, Lancaster, PA circa 1870s

Using the internet I have discovered the following. Gill’s City Gallery was a photo studio run by William L. Gill from 1859 to 1882.

Reverse side of paper holder for tintype from Gill's City Gallery, Lancaster, PA

The names Henry Stehman and John Stehman are written on the paper holder. The two men in the photograph certainly look like brothers. Having asked several people, the consensus is that these men are somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-eight years old.

There was a Henry B. Stehman who was born in 1852 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania who went on to become a famous doctor who treated lung diseases and who founded a sanatorium in Pasadena, California. While I don’t have definitive proof that the man on the left is this Henry Stehman, the other evidence supports this possibility. If Henry was twenty-five when the photo was taken, then the photo was taken in 1877, a date that is consistent with the years of operation of Gill’s City Gallery and the use of the tintype process.

Tintype circa 1870s

Unlike many photo processes, which have a negative and can easily produce multiple copies, tintypes are one-of-a-kind. Often a multiple lens camera was used to simultaneously take four images onto one metal plate. The developed image was then cut with tinsnips into four separate photos, hence the name “tintype”. With a black border on the left and top, the Stehman portrait looks like the upper left corner of a larger plate that was imprecisely snipped from the larger sheet.

A photograph has an uncanny ability to capture personality and detail whether it’s a tintype from the 1870s or a digital image from 2011.

Four lens tintype camera cira 1860s, image courtesy of The National Museum of American History, creative commons license.

Image from flickr.

Artist Richard Prince, along with his gallery and publisher were sued in 2008 for copyright infringement by photographer Patrick Cariou. This week a federal court ruled in favor of Cariou.

Patrick Cariou's Rasta photo on left, Richard Prince's appropriated image on right.

The court ruled that Prince’s use of many of Cariou’s photographs was infringement and not fair use. Prince is likely to appeal. Assessment of damages and attorney’s fees has not been made. Registering your photographs’ copyright is important. You never know if a famous artist might appropriate your work.

More information at A Photo Editor and the NY Times.

The web site Jezebel has an article about a cosmetic ad that exclaims that it is the first unretouched make up ad. We are so used to every advertising photo being photoshopped that to stand out an ad has to tout its lack of retouching. Note the model’s imperfect arm contrasted with her professionally made up face.

Sheraton University City Hotel at Twilight

The AIA provides an exhaustive checklist to help their members prepare for photography. The list was compiled with help from ASMP and is definitely worth reading if planning a large shoot, with a lot of interested parties. This list is our executive summary – a “greatest hits” of what our past experience shows are the basic, most important points.

1. Make a Shot List

As it is with most pursuits in life, good photography depends on good planning.

If you provide your photographer with a list of specific rooms and areas to be photographed, it will help him or her better plan for the shoot and provide an accurate cost proposal.

Calvary Church, Souderton, PA

2. Discuss photos’ ultimate use with the photographer

How the images are to be used will have an effect on the scope of the licensing, and on the licensing cost.

Also, the ultimate uses of the images will affect how the photographer chooses to create each image. For example, photos intended strictly for web use may need to be shot in landscape mode and may not need the exact detail of a photo meant for a large display print.

Huntingdon Valley Country Club Exterior

3. Determine if the building is ready for photography

The shoot may have to wait until all construction or renovations are completed. Additionally, for exterior photographs it is best to shoot when the landscaping looks best, and when there is no scaffolding visible.

Private Residence, Elizabethtown, PA

4. Provide the photographer with an on-site contact

This person may be in charge of the facility, the building’s engineer, or the manager or owner of the business. The contact should be familiar with the building and be able to balance the photographer’s needs with the building’s occupants’ needs.

It is essential that the photographer has this person’s phone number and that they be able to talk ahead of the shoot to make arrangements and learn about where to park and, if the shoot includes interiors, how to move gear into the building. This person will be invaluable if during the shoot it becomes important to be able to turn certain lights on and off.

Hiway Theater, Jenkintown, PA

5. Make sure the occupants know a photographer is coming

This is a specific issue for office or retail space. When the photos are commissioned by the building owner or management company, it is important that they inform their tenants and obtain tenants’ permission for photography of their space.

Sang Kee Restaurant - Sheraton University City, Philadelphia.

6. Provide a site plan.

Buildings are like people; they look their best when light flatters their features. We use as much information as we can get from our clients ahead of time to identify the best time of day to photograph a given building. Site plans, satellite images from Google Maps, and information from people familiar with the location are all helpful.

Wellington Apartments, Hatboro, PA

7. Plan for a scout or walkthrough with the photographer

The walkthrough, and ideally a separate scouting day, will answer any questions that could not be answered with site and floor plans, or discussing the location over the phone. Also, scouting allows the photographer to pre-visualize possible angles, lighting, and identify things that may have to be moved in or out of each shot.

Justison Landing, Wilmington, DE

8. Determine if props are needed

When the space is either unoccupied or recently constructed, the interior will often be a series of empty rooms. While it may be appropriate to photograph an empty warehouse as is, a completely bare living room or bedroom is not likely to sell any condo units.

Warehouse Interior

Cardiac Access Nurses' Station, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

Every interior space has its own set of scheduling restrictions. A photographer must find a balance between quality and convenience, which means choosing a time when the space still looks its absolute best while not interfering with the business of its occupants. The guidelines for scheduling the shoot can seem like a series of contradictions:

• Shoot too close to the completion date and the construction crew may still be racing to deal with unfinished punchlist items;
• Shoot immediately after construction and you run the risk that spaces are devoid of furniture and equipment;
• Shoot too long after construction and you may find that high-traffic areas are already beginning to look worn.
• Also, once the space is open for use, the shoot can prove to be an unmanageable inconvenience to a 24/7 operation.

Sitting Area, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

There is no steadfast hard rule, and no one-size-fits-all answer. The best time for photography will be different for every project. Previous planning and discussions between the client, the occupants, and photographer are critical to getting the best interior photographs.

For example, photographing a restaurant requires scheduling a time not during service, but after the tables have all been dressed and the cleaning staff has had a chance to tend to the floors, windows, etc.

NICU Patient Room, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

When Greg photographed a series of new additions to the Morristown Memorial Hospital for Buckl Architects, we had the benefit of working within a perfect time window for each phase. For this project, the ideal time to schedule the photo shoot was after construction had completed, furniture had been moved in, and most of the equipment and computers had been installed – but before those portions of the hospital opened their doors to patients.

Intensive Care Unit, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

The last aspect is probably the most important. People are usually glad to be accommodating during a photo shoot, but it might be inconvenient for an ICU patient to leave their room just so the photographer can set up his shot.

Nurses' Station, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

On all the projects we have worked on for Buckl Architects they have always been actively involved in the process, and have done a great job providing and styling plants for each of the spaces. Lee Tamaccio at Buckl is a kick-ass stylist.

Nurses's Station and Hallway, Morristown Memorial Hospital, Morristown, NJ

This project was featured in the Architectural Showcase of Healthcare Design Magazine.

This weekend I am attending ASMP’s Strictly Business 3 series of talks and seminars for professional photographers. In this time of immense change in technology and in the economics of the photography industry, these events have been a positive catalyst for me. It is clear that the world needs images.  While there are forces at work that are reducing prices at the low end of the photography market (think micro stock and cell phone news photos), there is still a need for experienced commercial image makers.

Greg Benson, tagged.

This weekend I have met many other photographers, both younger and older. I’m 52. While it has been fun to engage in nostalgic reminiscences with photographers my age, I am energized by the enthusiasm of many of the younger photographers. It is encouraging to see people in their twenties starting their photo businesses. It has always been a leap of faith to start a photography business–I started my full time business in 1982.

Yesterday one of the four workshops I ended up in was called the Artist Lost and Found taught by Sean Kernan. I entered the wrong hotel meeting room and ended up in Sean’s session by accident. The previous sessions during the day on licensing, web sites and marketing were helpful and informative, but by after lunch my brain was filled to the top with prescriptive things I should start doing. Sean focused  on having working commercial photographers re-connect with the wonder and thrill with photography that animated them when they were new photographers.

Sean had the group of about sixteen people do group exercises to open up perception and let go of inhibition. I felt like I was in a theater class.

We stood in a circle and Sean tossed an imaginary potato to someone across the circle. That person mimed tossing to another person and then the imaginary potato became a basketball and then an orange. While doing a child like game the brain had to move into another sphere of imagining and reacting instead of rational thinking. We played another circle game with changing music. One person would move across the circle to touch the next player. Each person had to move to the type of music being played. A formal minuet, hip hop, monks chanting, tribal drum music followed in quick succession as each person improvised movement to that music.

What’s the connection with photography? Every creative endeavor needs to tap into intuition and gut decision making. Being open to the new is a crucial part of being creative.

ASMP members getting *their* photo taken by Sean Henry.