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Bollington Well-Dressing

Originally uploaded by KaJo, LRPS

This week is the week of Well-Dressing in Bollington, Cheshire. We went over on Saturday afternoon to have a look at the plaques created for the celebration. The theme was astronomy, and each of the plaques was handmade out of flowers, clay, dried stuff (pulses, beans, corn) – evidently a lot of hard work had gone into them. It was a lovely walk around the town in the sunshine or a couple of hours.

KaJo’s photography blog has moved home, to a new blog, here: http://kajophotography.wordpress.com/

Please find me over there.

I heard back from ShutterStock today. They require that in your first submission, 7 of the 10 reviewed images must be accepted. Unfortunately, 7 of my first 10 were rejected.

3 were rejected because they were of limited commercial value
4 were rejected due to excessive noise or digital artefacts.

So, now I have a much clearer idea of what standard and quality they are after. It is essential to view the images at 100% (or maybe more), remove all traces of noise (or better still, don’t shoot with any noise!) and really watch out for any artefacts. I suspect most problems were with my workflow and working with JPEG files. I’ve never had any need for higher quality than that, but i guess now I do.

So, for my resubmission, i’ll be selecting some alternative images that may have better commercial value, and for the remainder, taking the original RAW image, saving as a TIFF, and working on that, before finally saving as a JPEG as the last step of all.

Onwards and upwards, it’s all a good learning experience.

Also, today, i found another new stock site : www.picturenation.com I’ll sign up with them too.

I’ve decided to give this ago. As I have a little time on my hands at the moment, I’ve done a bit of research and signed up with a few microstock sites. The difficult bit will be selecting which images to upload, but at least now i’m clear on where i’m going to do it, and how.

So far, I’ve signed up for:

• Fotolia: http://en.fotolia.com/p/200767634/partner/200767634
  
• IStockPhoto
  
• ShutterStock
  ShutterStock – Check out My Gallery Here
• DreamsTime
  

I’ve also found some pages and software that look like they might be useful:

• Software for uploading to multiple microstock sites in one go : http://www.prostockmaster.com/
• Java script for resizing images : http://www.phototechniqueswiki.com/Article.aspx?articleID=34

I’ll update again when i’ve uploaded some photos for each of these sites.

I’ve just stumbled across the fab CoffeeShop Free PS/PSE Actions! page by Rita at CoffeeShop Actions, with lots of fantastic free PS and PSE actions.  I particularly like the look of the PowderRoom one and am looking forward to having a play with that at home, but there are lots of other really useful little things on there too.

Another good resource with some interesting pages and lots of helpful hints is Erin’s http://digitalphotographyformoms.net/ – with especially good instructions for installing actions for all versions of PSE.

Firstly, apologies for not blogging sooner.  Been a busy few weeks.

So, the RPS Distinctions Advisory Day, what was it like?  In a word : Awesome

The day started with informal chat and introductions. It was great to meet some of the people with whom I had previously exchanged emails, and put some faces to names. Everybody was very kind and welcoming, and reassuring (I was very nervous).  There were about 40 people there in total, about 25 of whom were showing prints or slides, and the rest of whom were either judging, organising, or spectating.

I was informed that I would be the fifth person of the day, so I took a seat near the front and waited for things to get started.

The day started with each of the ‘judges’ (Vanessa, Nick and Tom) talking about what they are looking for when assessing L, A and F panels, as well as an introduction from the organizors.  This was an interesting insight into what is expected of applicants in terms of technical quality, visual awareness and presentation.  We then progressed onto viewing each of the participants panels.  As each person was called, their images were placed on a stand at the front, lit by two powerful lights to give a clear and bright view of the images.  Once the images were displayed to the participant’s satisfaction, the judges each took a turn in discussing the panel.  They were able to make suggestions about presentation and ‘panelling’, as well as technical quality of individual images, and help identify the stronger and the weaker images for each panel.

This feedback was fascinating and a source of excellent information – regardless of who’s panel was being discussed. I took several pages of notes from the day.  I found the advice to be both honest and critical, as well as supportive and encouraging. All of the judges found the time to speak to individuals during the breaks to provide further feedback and support.

I put forward the first panel below, along with four ’spare’ images.  I was aware that as printed images, the 2nd and 4th on the top row were technically weaker than others, as they were a little soft in the main point of focus.  Vanessa noted this immediately, which confirmed my suspicion that I should consider replacing these, although she suggested perhaps image 4 (dandelions) could be reshot if possible.  She also made positive comments on my ’spare’ image of the 3 Giraffes.

As well as the feedback and information from the experts, the other highlight of the day for me was seeing so many fantastic panels, particularly the A and F panels on display.  It provided a real insight as to what is required for the A and F distinctions, and how to start on the path towards these.  I came away inspired and motivated, and with a much clearer understanding of what will happen on the L Assessment day (and, I think, of what is required of me as an L applicant).

It was an exhausting day, but well worth it – I can thorougly recommend an advisory day to anybody considering applying for a Licentiate.

The Distinctions Advisory day is on Sunday.  I’ve now mounted my 10 images, plus 4 ’spares’ – which I think are all technically better images that one or two of the panel images, but which don’t seem to fit quite so well into the panel as a whole.  I’m undecided on whether they should be in there or not.

These are my two ‘alternative’ panels:

and

I’ve set up a few new photographic spaces on the internet.  I have had a few enquiries about purchasing my images, so have decided to see what is out there to enable people to purchase my work.

I’ve set up:

a gallery at www.ImageKind.com :

this one is kinda nice – it allows you to select images from your Flickr photostream and grabs the images over the Flickr API for your gallery, saving on tiresome uploading/organising time.

An account with RedBubble :

And a new BubbleSite gallery from RedBubble:

http://kajo.redbubble.com/

I particularly like the clean layout offered on the BubbleSites, and the fact that it integrates beautifully with the RedBubble shop for purchasing prints.

I’ve bitten the bullet and booked myself a place as a ‘participant’ on the RPS Distinctions Advisory Day in September.   I’m quite sure that I’m nowhere near ready for this, but after some wonderfully supportive advice from several other RPS members and staff, I’ve bitten the bullet and booked the place (with the option of changing to a ’spectator’ nearer the time if i’m really not ready!). I’ve been through my portfolio to see what i’ve got that I could perhaps use in an L-panel, and narrowed it down to about 25 shots.  This includes the 10 from my OU T189 ECA Panel (having gained 100% with that from the OU, they recommended that I consider trying for the L, so I hope it’s a wise choice to use some of these images again).  And from those 25, i’ve just taken 10 of them (and random ‘grab’ at this stage) and tried to order them into something like a coherent panel.  I’m not there yet, by a long stretch, and this is a first pass only, but here goes.

Two rows of five images

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ROW 1 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-andrew/sets/72157606589841797/detail/

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ROW 2 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-andrew/sets/72157606589878467/detail/

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What i do like:

• these are all, i think, representativeof my general style (in so far as I have any style)
• colours and light being big features
• they demonstrate a reasonable range of techniques and (i hope) technical competences

What i don’t like:

• the ‘bobbing up and down’ of the bottom row in particular
• combination of portrait and landscape format feels ‘uncomfortable’ to me.   I wonder if i can rotate the lighthouse steps (image 3, row 2) to be landscape?
• i’m not sure about image 1 on row 2
• I scored highly with this image on the OU ECA panel, but to me, it just feels like a lucky snapshot, nothing else. I’m unsure whether to include it.
• the dandelion isn’t technically great, i don’t think, the detail in the fluffy bits could be better, and i’m not sure this’ll blow up to A3 size particularly well.
• is the purple flower macro (row 1, image 2) too abstract?

So, i’d appreciate comments, all and any comments, any feedback or suggestions. Be as harsh as you want. I’m quite sure that this panel is nowhere near the standard of an L panel for the RPS yet, but i hope that i’m heading in the right direction. All and any comments, suggestions and constructive criticisms welcome!