My workflow

An effective workflow, is the thing everybody is talking about these days. And it IS important if you are serious about your photography. Today it is not enough to have the best gear and it’s not even enough to be a good photographer.
Shooting with digital equipment I produce a lot more photos than when I used film. It’s free, so I often shoot 400-500 frames on an assignment. At home at my computer I now have a lot of work sorting and editing in all those photos. And in order to be able to deliver only the best ones to a client , in the right amount and on time – I have to use a time-saving and effective workflow. It can be the difference between getting the photos sold in time or not!

Every digital photographer has he’s or her’s own way to work with the picture files. The photojournalist, the commercial photographer and the sports photographer do it their own way. This is how I’m working (December 2006) with rawfiles from my Canon 5D and 20D:

I have a bunch of memorycards in a small waterproof plastic container. When a card is full I download the files to my portable harddisk, a Smartdisk Flashtrax with 40 gb storage. Back home I plug in the cards to the cardreader or the Flashtrax to my computer. Then it’s time for Photo Mechanic

Camera Bits software Photo Mechanic is a real joy to work with. I ‘ingest’ the files in a new folder and then I re-name all the files in one move. In PM I tag the files with the date, the clients name, the location and everything else I find important to the job. Those meta-tags and keywords stay with the files from now on. Then I browse through all the photos and delete the bad ones and tag the keepers. I tag with a certain color if a picture is ‘typical’, ‘good’ or ’super’. The keepers are then send to a new folder called ‘keepers’. Now it is time for Capsure One:

Then I start up Capsure One, from Phase One, and use this software for RAW processing.

The last program I use is Adobe Photoshop CS2. I do some adjustments, like ‘levels’ and ‘unsharp mask’ or ’sharpening’. The files I end up with are then burned down on a cd or dvd and send to the customer. If the files are of a size intended for web-use I use a webbased server program called Kontainer. Here my clients download the the files easily. That way there are no need for cd’s or dvd’s to wait for in the mail.

Get your own photo website and CMS

My friend and fellow photographer, Sofus Comer, is a busy man. Besides travelling the country on assignments, he is also a gifted webmaster.
Fotomule is a new Content Management System for semi- and pro-photographers. It is in a beta state and that means he need some to test it. Try it out! English and danish language.

Ask for permission?

I took this picture from waistlevel one hot summerday in central Copenhagen. The couple did’nt knew it and that is fine by me. The reason is that I found the pair quite funny… Some friends say to me that I should ask them before taking the picture. But why? You don’t see their faces! What do you think? Go for it or ask before shoting?

A nightmare!

This is what we all fear. We hear strange noises from our bathroom and this nightmare is upon us.
No, this is not real. I did’nt spend 4 hours building this scene. It is from a swedish architecture exibition years ago. I just like the photo and you should see it too…

Way of the harmoni

On my way home from work one day this summer, my eyes got caught by these Aikido practitioners. They vere doing some repetitions with a wooden sword like: step-to-the-side-and-cut-his-legs

I’ve done some martial arts myself, but now it’s salsa dancing and maybe a run through the park every now and then. But I do miss the feeling of harmoni and the all absorbing feeling of bodycontrol one gain in the training.
I hav’nt found any martial arts blogs – please send me an email if you know of any….

Watch out – I’m an amateur!

I’m a passionate photographer. But I can’t (and won’t) quit my dayjob as a graphic designer and become a fulltime professional photographer. For now it is a pleasant extra income and my private therapy. Lucky for me, sometimes I can use my hobby at my work and that is a nice blend.
When I’m out there shooting concerts or on an asignment, I see more and more amateurs with all the expensive gear and the burning passion – just like me. The digital cameras are now cheaper than ever and it does’nt seem to stop. Even the high-end cameras are within reach of us nerds. When I meet some of them we talk optics, workflow, Nikon vs. Canon and all that. Websites is a must-have, a great marketing tool and we build them ourselves, a friend help us or we even pay for a pro CMS (content management system).
Does the ‘real’ photographer feel threaten when we are there beside him, with the same camera, enthusiasm and sometimes even a presscard? Sometimes he is outnumbered by us nerds! As an amateur I don’t have a schedule and when the editor call the pro’ to get home to the newspaper, I can stay as long as I want to. I can pick my own asignments and leave those I’m not interested in.
My conclusion is: I don’t think the pro’ has to worry and watch his back. Us amateurs have a lot to learn and we don’t have 4 or 5 years education from some famous art school behind us. But we do have some years of experience and we have another thing in common: the passion.
Anyway, I’m keeping my dayjob….

Welcome…

…to this my very first blog. Well, not the very first blog. I had one at Blogger.com. But everyboby I know praise WordPress. So I’ve moved!
Until I see ‘the light’, it’s gonna be about something about here and there and other things.
Photography is my passion – both digital and traditional. Graphic design makes my daily income, but now my photographs is beginning to make some bugs too…

About me

This is about photography only. I will post about my passion, thoughts, ideas, questions and also a lot about gear and techniques. Go to my personal blog (in danish) for other topics than photography.

Photography equipment
I love the gear from Canon! It’s intuive and does’nt seem to have any real weaknesses. The lenses are some of the best available and may only be inferior to those from Leica.

Canon Eos 5D
Canon Eos 20D
Canon EF 16-35 mm 2.8
Canon EF 24-70 mm 2.8
Canon EF 70-200 mm 2.8 IS
Canon EF 50 mm 1.4
Canon EF 85 mm 1.8
Canon EF 100 mm 2.8 Macro
Canon Speedlite 580 x 2
Manfrotto mono- and tripods
Sekonic Flashmate L-308S

Happy too see you on my blog – now continue and comment one, or more, of my posts!