Bugle Blog - maxblackphotos.

Another year gone.

12/31/2012

Well, quick as a flash it's almost time to say tata to 2012 and it probably goes down as 'different' rather than Wow!!!
Biggest change for me is taking a big breath and a hard look at Image Libraries and the dwindling returns for greater effort. Stands to reason that with the tidal wave of images going online and the static number of buyers out there that at some point something would have to give.... so my efforts are now being thrust elsewhere, which still involves photography but with the emphasis on using images I have in a retail way..so cards prints , posters and editions..
Today I'll be doing a shoot of all the mounts and board that are going into my shop..spent the weekend clearing out the funk of forty thousand years from the cellars..sorry spiders and other invertibrates ..it had to be done. Once there was chaos now there is order and things are stacked up in plastic boxes rather that the rag bag army of carriers and plassy bags...order...me?? whatever next?? So lots of space now and I need to knuckle down and get the products out there. Mrs M is coming on board so I think I'll benefit from here senior management and eye for detail experience
The one thing that really will change for me in 2013 is that now I've freed myself up from the need to 'feed the libraries' type of photography, then I'll be much more project focused and yes, I've had the photographic earworm come a calling and I've things to see places to snap.
So expect images to appear in more coherent galleries rather that my scattergun approach of previous years..along the lines of this
So if Santa got you some new gear do that crazy thing no one ever does...read the manual..practice and then naff on out and shoot like you know what you are doing...

I'll see you on the other side, big UP to all those who have been on one of my training courses as well and of course to all my customers for making this year...'different'...

Paypal

12/20/2012

Found out yesterday after the minimal amount of research , that you can create your own buy it now with drop down menus over at Paypal
Okay a wee bit clunky but a quick way of getting a selling option onto your web pages by just copying a bit of html code in... I'll be giving that a go later today. You may have noticed that some of the pages have a password lock on them...that's because I'm working on them and will get them all polished up in time for January.
if you are my eagle eyed viewer you may have also noticed that there are a lot more galleries appearing on here...Architecture Tags and Graffiti are just 2 and I'll be adding more as the day rolls on, although I'll be having a wee bit of fun with my latest Grandson...mwaaarh..xxxx during the day. So this old web site should be stuffed to the gunnels by the time 2013 turns up, providing of course today isn't the day we all end up under a Mayan apocalypse...this video may help you get through the day..I'll see you on the other side.

Gallery pumping..

12/19/2012

Yes, I'm pumping up the volume of galleries on here. I spent a while looking at a lot of online selling options from Shopify to Redframe and Squarespace and decide that I really should just keep it all in one place and that place is here. Okay the buy it now is a bit clunky and there isn't that swooshy HTML 5 experience ( felt a bit queasy after all my HTML viewing yesterday) but it's home and I think I can make the most of it.
Launch day for all the products is the first week in January, just as long as we get through the apocalypse on the 20th. Some new stuff to cast your mince pies on....

Click on this and you should be whisked off to the gallery

same goes if you click on the one below

So 2 new places to have a look at new stuff and I'll be getting more on here as time allows. There will also be a page of Picture mounts, made to measure and off the shelf in both metric and Imperial with Cello bags, Self adhesive board, backs and stuff.... as well as the cards Limited Editions and mounted prints. I'll be busy , hopefully and I have a shop on Etsy that I'll be putting stuff on as well. As with all ventures the Twin Imposters will be floating about, I have to be realistic but I'm looking forward to it.....

Good printing on cheap paper..

12/18/2012

can be acheived, if not easily then with a little bit of work looking deep into your print dialogue box. I let Photoshop handle all the colour when I'm printing and not the printer manufacturers settings. I know that ICC profiles are a sticky wicket to bat on rendered completetely useless if you go and stick some cheapo ink off ebay into your machine and if you use an incorrect colourspace and then not specify the right type of paper and finish....I know why people use labs...but even then you'll need a calibrated screen and have your files to be printed profiled to the printers....I can see why just having stuff online is so bloody easy.
Lots of companies have ICC profiles that you can download, so your colour space/printer/paper combo should be covered..here's what Hahnemuehle have provided .
I've been printing off bundles of photo montage images to stick in Christmas cards and it's only the cheapest of the cheap Tesco paper but I thought I'd just have a riffle through different colour spaces when printing.

So I let Photoshop handle everything in the drop down, then looked at what colour profile I'd saved the file in, found that in the next drop down and ended up with really good prints on crap paper...and this was on my ip6700 which is stuffed with ebay's finest inks so when i switched to my Pixma 9500 mk11 which has Canon Lucia ink, the results took another step upwards.
Conclusions, well get the right profile, use manufacturers inks, top quality paper and take time to get to know your print dialogue box and printing from home will become a pleasure not a pain....

All the gear is here...

12/13/2012

..so now is the time to get cracking and start making all the samples up and getting prints sorted. It's all going to be in-house...so that'll be me being busy then. For the regular blog reader amongst you you may have picked up that I'm moving more towards retail and gallery stuff with my images which will be online, to galleries, at shows and through local advertising. So I've spent a bit of time getting work into coherent galleries, now all the right gear has turned up...the only thing I'm lacking is space. The equipment I've now got is on the chuffing BIG size and I reckon at some point I'm going to have to look at a workshop/studio to accommodate things...but that's the future and this new venture will have to generate it's own income to justify that....I'm already using part of the cellars but I'd have to get an industrial heater if i was to work down there on a permanent basis.
Eagle eyed ones out there will have noticed that I have a new blank gallery called 'The Picture Shop' which will start to house all the retail stuff, although of course any image on here or here is available as a print...just pop me an email maxblackphotos@gmail.com and I'll get back to you toot suite...

Sun's out..good day for ICM shots, still got a load in the can from Monday in Manchester to have a look through but may nip out again for some snapping...

Stats...

12/11/2012

Not had one of these for a while but as I live on the web (for the moment, things change in 2013) but time for a heads up on who is watching, where they are from and WTF it means if anything....
So I have all this data that piles up in graphs and charts from all my sites and I'll tell you about this place first, well most of the traffic actually comes from online searching, there's me thinking that sticking links to back on here would drive a bit of traffic, hey, wrong again!!! Second in the table is Youtube, yes youtube where I seem to get new followers all the time and some wander across to see what that old fella has been wittering on about and linger for a while. Next up is Google in all it's national incarnations from .de to .ve the data is there and if I could speaka da lingo I'd thank them all individually....bumping along is twitter and propping up the pile is flickr....does anyone still think flickr is a viable and vibrant place for images???? It seems to be yawning it's way to oblivion, for gods sakes Getty do the decent thing and make a land grab now, ah flickr how bright shiny and vibrant you were back in the day...... so about 180 hardy souls bob in here on a daily basis which is okay and I'm hoping to eclipse that next year once the 'local' advertising hit's the streets....
Youtube how I love all that statistical data, charts, graphs demographics you've got the lot and it's time to big up the newest country to pop in for a nosy so as you might expect America is my biggest visitor with 68% blokeys and the dear ladies in at 32% with the majority coming from the 45 to 65 years old age demographic.....yes I'm getting bored with this as well. So who is the smallest country with the least visitors I hear you say through a stifled yawn, well that would be the Azores with one male in his 30's.....so exciting
Last is my Library site where I hardly get a peep from any UK visitors but loads from Japan, Russia, the Americas and Europe...totally different group than those that drop in here....so what does it mean...for me stop looking at the data and get those snaps processed, between 500 to 700 'unique' visitors call through in any 24 hour period across my sites and if I could I'd shake you all by the hand and say 'Thanks for calling by...' which is what I'm now saying to you dear viewer.......

Bonnet-Curvy mono Vdub

The Fear

12/7/2012

Pretty late getting in to this Channel 4 Drama...now I'm not going on about the script or acting but really about the lighting, camera angles and use of colour and focus. Catch it on 4OD . Now I'd say it was shot on those rather nice Canon Digital Cinematic cameras that seem to be cleaving a path into the world of video. Here's a link from the director and very interesting that they used a Lensbaby on front of an £80,000 camera here the Director talks through the shooting and I think they have used a bit of Photoshop in the PP work, especially the use of filmstock filters. So I used it as a very good extended youtube tutorial, lots of great use of angles and aperture and some great lighting, deserves some awards just for that, I'll catch up on the series when 'The Beast from the East' descends upon us next week. Get yourself prepped up for some fab winter shots. I'm off to give Santander a bit of a chirp in their collective ear this morning, not good enough chaps, I'm not impressed, hopefully a bit of face to face will sort out my burbling growl....

Doctor ...help me...

12/5/2012

taking Mr's Max to get on the red eye to London this morning my mind went off wandering about image making and I had another of those light bulb moments as some more 'creative use of camera' image making techniques lodged itself in my frontal lobe...Doctor...I need help...If you can just get me to stop thinking about new ways of creating imagery and just get me to stick with one thing then I would be grateful...what...there is no easy cure...I have to carry on until I'm completely devoid of any new way of using a camera??? meh...que sera....
I know great dollops of some of the stuff I do (attempt) are of an acquired viewing taste , heck some of the things I try I'm not even a big fan of, but I'll try, sometimes some of the stuff I do inspires folk to go and have a go at some waccy baccy stuff, which is good, so until the grey matter starts it's inevitable decline it looks like I'll be stuck in creative mode....
I'm not going to go on about my efforts to re-equip my mount cutting studio suffice to say that I have a reverse impression of a keyboard on my fore head from the barriers I am crunching up against..it's all very frustrating
There will be a mount cutting, board, finishing, print section on here in the next few weeks, it should be now...grrrrr... but if the gear isn't here you can't use it
Right Chickens chipped off their perches, a few snaps of a Salmon pink sunrise and now to crack on with some work.

The Old Grey Whistle Test....

12/4/2012

...this weekend I'll be conducting one, I'll have a captive house full of non photographic creatives in the shape of needle-workers here for the day not to see me of course but having a days patch working. So I'm going to let them loose in my Photo library and see what tickles their collective fancy and open myself up for a bit of Q & A. I know what I like but as I've learnt from past outings in selling images, Joe Public may just want those Kittens in Brandy glasses and Puppies in socks on a washing line....
So A3+ is upon me, as I speak the laptop is whirring to the sound of a canon CD as it does a full install. I've gone for a Pixma 9500 mk11..I was dribbling in the direction of the Pro X 1 but £600+ was a bit on the fruity side of my budget and then i saw Park Cameras were doing Mk 11's for £399....bargain and then I thought I'd have a trawl on amazon and ebay and blow me I got one for £260.... with paper cables and all original fittings... I feel like a Yabba dabba dooooo... there, I've had one...so more budget to throw at the mounting and board side of the enterprise. Now as I now qualify for Village elder status ( could substitute elder with idiot) I'm going to pass on one of the things I've learned in this tough old world...yep...pin em back... if you are thinking of starting up on your own or even mounting an exhibition ask yourself the big question before you do it... 'How much am I prepared to lose' ? . It's a big question, it's a good question. If you rent some space, get images framed and mounted, pay for some publicity, plough in a big dollop of your time the first thing you ask yourself is 'This will cost me £1200, am I prepared in case nothing sells? Can I afford to lose that much...do I have enough family members to give a framed piccie at Christmas.....Retail is tough, I may even hand out a few selling tips tomorrow but after this weekend I hope to have a clear idea of what my target market wants, produce some product with a USP, convince then that this is what they want and give it to them with a dash of personal service...

Developmental

12/3/2012

I'm not the one to define where the boundaries of photographic art, photo journalism and photography blur and blend, do you tell folk that you are a 'fine art photographer' or expect that any reasonably computer and photographically enabled visitor has the ability to place their own definition on your work. In many ways the explosion of images on the internet have allowed us an uninhibited and un-blinkered look at how other folk with cameras take a view of things and start an open or closed conversation using their ability to capture a moment.
Now quite surprisingly out there in the non virtual world are people who are not savvy to the plethora of hardware and software that lies behind the creation of most of today's imagery. Not that they don't care, they don't need to, but most know what they like and certainly know what they don't. In the music industry they used to be the Old Greys, knew what they liked and ....er liked it. Now as my one or two regular readers know I've owned galleries, stood there at trade shows selling images and frames, attempting to provide what is wanted without knowing what was wanted, pre guessing, imposing on the buyer what I want them to buy...and this is where I am now, on the verge of selling to non photographic literates things that I think will have a resonance, be consumer friendly, be something worth owning.
And so the developmental definition of who I am in a photographic sense begins, fine art, experimental, mainstream, odd???? My own definition of how I think I'm perceived, well I'll keep that to myself, how the Old Greys will see me, well that is what I'm about to find out.
Well one from the experimental bin, the photographic earworm is back gnawing away and making me veer about a bit, I can already see the next phase of this type of imagery and so on this dull grey monday I give you...layered panoramas.....add salt to taste