Part SEVEN: Working For Yourself
From Here To Eternity
In today's post, I'll explore my work flow, from prep, to camera, to computer, to the digital darkroom.
Planning
Decide on a shoot. I pick what I’m shooting for the day, usually a day or two in advance. I get any batteries charged, plus a spare. I charge the flashes, if needed, and spare batteries for those too. If I haven’t already, I clear the memory cards, back them up, and reformat the cards in camera. Pack a couple spare cards, too. Tripod, remote trigger, filters, etc all checked and in the camera bag.
Most of what I shoot is outdoors, so, weather plays a big factor.
If there’s even a hint of rain, then, plan for it. Lots of clean, dry, towels in the car. A few small hand towels in plastic gallon zip bags, too. Plastic covers for lenses. AND for the awesome photographer: rain gear!
For snow, plan, too. Boots, spare socks, two sets of gloves. I have a thin pair of thinsulate®, and a thick pair. When shooting, I use the thin pair on my right hand (trigger finger) and carry the spare heavy glove in a pocket. Thick jackets, hoods, hats, too. A few hand warmers in pockets help.
Next up, check the time of day, and the direction of the setting sun (or rising), to make sure that I get the sun where I want, during a shoot. This is key, for my sunsets on beaches, sunsets near lighthouse, or for catching the light when shooting waterfalls. Sometimes, you change which road you are using, to get to a spot, so that you are shooting with where you want the sun.
Plan the route, too. Map, directions, etc. Some places, there’s no cell service, so, paper helps.
It’s a weird habit, but I do two things while sitting in my driveway, before leaving for a shoot: GPS, and check camera settings. Make sure, that, if I am shooting birds, I go to my settings and check to see I have them set. If I am shooting waterfalls long exposure or star trails at night, I have that set correct, of beach scenes…
ISO, White Balance, Aperture, Shutter Speed.
Reset all for whatever I am shooting that day. Don’t go shooting all day in the woods, with the camera thinking you are indoors, and shooting with a flash. Or shooting a sunset, when it was last set for bright midday, and fast moving horses.
When I shoot in winter, or cold, (and I really hate this part) about 20 minutes, to half an hour before I get there, I turn off the heat, and crack a window, with my camera, and the long zoom lens (usually, winter is birds) out, and let them adjust to the cold. You don’t want to get onsite and be ready to shoot and have the less all foggy from the cold.
First thing, take a few test shots. Really zoom in on the LCD on the back of your camera, and check things. Focus set properly? Are you white balanced, correctly? Are you still shooting 6400 ISO, and forgot to change it back to 100? Just test shoot, check with the back of your camera. I tend to use the first few shots, with the Blinkies turned on. Technically, not Blinkies, but, actually called Highlights. In your camera menu, turn on Highlights warnings, to see if you are overexposed when shooting. It helps while shooting and you can dial a little exposure compensation, to help get your Exposure right.
I’ll spend the day shooting, checking, shooting, checking. Pretty sure it’s called chimping
In my last post in Part 6, how I immediately back up my images. It’s worth repeating, but once I get home:
My SD Memory card goes in the laptop
- All images on the card, go on a folder in an external drive.
- That entire folder gets backed up on another drive.
- I fire up Adobe Lightroom, and grab a drink
- In Lightroom, I go to Import
- I navigate to the folder, and find ONE image I truly enjoy.
- I import one, and process it, first pass: Lens, I like to do one image, and show immediate results.
From there, I take that one image into Photoshop, and do some final touches. Usually, into NIK Viveza, bring out some shadows, and adjust some detail, reduce noise, unsharp mask, then export.
I like one good image at the end of the day, as a reward.
Up Next: Day TWO with the process, and a whole lot more in depth with my Lightroom and Photoshop workflow.
Part 6 WORK for yourself: RAW?JPG? Add Copyright Note
Part 5 WORK for yourself: My Machine, My Hardware!
Part 4 WORK for yourself: More Stuff? More Money!
Part 3 WORK for yourself: Camera? What Camera?
Part 2 WORK For Yourself: Wait? You Charge HOW Much?
Part 1 WORK for Yourself: How Much Can I Make?
