I recently had the honor of having one of my still images on display in the Senate Rotunda in Washington DC.  It was one of eleven photographs in the Copyright Alliance exhibit,  “Recording Our History: Faces Behind the Camera“.

It was this portrait of blues drummer Sam Carr that I shot in 2001:

© Gail Mooney

At that time, I had just started shooting video. I wanted to combine both mediums in a personal project about the Delta blues musicians.  My plan was to shoot environmental still portraits and capture video interviews of the musicians talking about their music and growing up in the Delta during that time in America.

I spent weeks filling out every conceivable grant application and getting rejected every time.  I knew I needed to capture these stories soon and that they couldn’t wait.  The youngest musician was in his 70’s. Ultimately, I made it happen on my own dime – a bit slower than I wanted – but I made it happen. I have been rewarded financially and countless other ways. That was over ten years ago. It’s a lot easier now simply because of technology.

These days there seems to be a prevailing attitude of gloom and doom. We have an economy that can’t seem to turn itself around and we’re bombarded by change that’s thrust upon us. We’re scared to death of the unknown and nobody seems to know what to do next and how to make any money doing it.

Yet, I’ve never been more hopeful in my life. Why?  Because I don’t need someone else to validate my ideas – and that is a powerful notion. There are no longer just a few gatekeepers with the keys to the kingdom. Technology has leveled the playing field.

Human beings will always have the need to communicate.  These days we can communicate globally and with ease.  An idea or creation can be shared around the world in a matter of minutes.  Think of the power in that and think of the opportunities it presents.

Gail Mooney has recently finished her first feature film Opening Our Eyes.  You can see a trailer and find out more about this project at www.openingoureyesmovie.com

Clientcopia – www.clientcopia.com
This site lets me know that everyone has crazy clients. Good for a laugh and a pick me up.

Basecamp HQ – www.basecamphq.com
I use this online project management tool for both my companies.  This keeps me organized and ensures open communication with my clients.

Apple Trailers – www.apple.com/trailers
I’m a movie junkie.  Plus this is an excellent way to see the best lit, best composed shots in the whole movie.

Rafael Concepcion – www.aboutrc.com/blog
RC is a helpful author and podcaster who shares his discoveries in great posts.  He’s a natural storyteller and very passionate.

Twitter – www.twitter.com
I follow a great group of photographers and media pros.  This is the water cooler/bar for the digital age.  I get news, gossip, and strong opinions. Feel free to follow @rhedpixel and share any news you have with me as well.

Photo Focus – www.PhotoFocus.com
This site is an extensive collection of articles and resources.  There are daily posts and I truly enjoy the breadth of coverage.

Screenr – www.Screenr.com
If I need to record a quick tutorial or show a colleague a technique, Screenr is great.

Creative COW – www.creativecow.net
This is where I go to get all of my video questions answered.  You’ll find active forums and extensive selection of tutorials and podcasts.

Kelby Training – www.kelbytraining.com
This site offers a large selection of classes and tutorials by some of the top photographers and photoshop users in the world.

Mac Rumors – www.macrumors.com
I’m an Apple enthusiast.  I like to know what’s going on as well as what might be going on in the Apple ecosystem.

Photoshop Disasters – www.psdisasters.com
This is another site that’s good for a laugh.  It’s also educational as you can learn from other’s mistakes.

Triple Exposure – www.3exposure.com
This one is a blog I share … but that doesn’t mean I don’t read it every day.  There are great comments and resources all about my three favorite styes of photography – panoramic, HDR, and time-lapse.

How about you?  What are your must read sites?  I’m always looking for more.

Richard Harrington is the founder of RHED Pixel,  a visual communications company in Washington, D.C.  You can read Rich’s blog at www.RichardHarringtonBlog.com as well as follow him on Twitter @rhedpixel.  If you’d like to check out his books, just swing by his Amazon page.

Allow this 100 plus pages, from Creative Lab @ Google, to load both images and videos, and take the time to explore them, to find out how the world and all the rules are changing. This is just heart-stopping and life-changing. Go HERE!

#1  Reading recommendation:
From Still to Motion by Richard Harrington – Peachpit Press

Harrington has written 27 books on everything from Photoshop tips to Final Cut Pro and other software applications.  In his current book “From Still to Motion” he documents a field case study creating a video with the hybrid camera Canon 5D Mark II.  This book is a must have for any still photographer who is thinking of moving into motion.

Gail Mooney runs a video production company www.kellymooney.com.

Video is the hot topic these days. You’d think it was a new thing. But there’s nothing new about video – it’s been around almost as long as TV. What is new is that broadband has made online video viewing integral to the Internet experience.

In the last year alone we’ve seen an explosion of video viewing and sharing on social networking sites. Advertisers are shifting their marketing dollars to the Web and online ads are booming. Why? Because marketers know that the consumer is going online to see and hear more about the products they are thinking of buying. It’s one thing for a potential customer to see a static image accompanied by text and quite another to see a product in use and demonstrated, or to hear the story behind a company. Online Web videos can be linked and shared and are searchable, providing more possibilities for potential customers or clients to find you and what your company offers.

If you run a video production company, it’s a no-brainer that you’ll want to use video samples to promote your business. But video is also effective for promoting all types of businesses, including still photography. You can import your still images into some type of non-linear editing system like Final Cut Pro, add a narrative track and/or music and create a video promo of your work for online viewing. This promo can also be uploaded to a mobile device giving you the ability to show your work to potential clients in a quick and interesting fashion, anywhere, anytime. Better than your typical “elevator speech” when someone asks “What do you do?”

Another very effective way to market and promote your photography business is to create a behind-the-scenes video. Everyone loves a story and this is a great way to tell people about your company as well as provide more information about yourself and how you work.

Gail Mooney runs a still photography and video production company with her partner Thomas Kelly at www.kellymooney.com. Gail share more on this topic here.

Pricing a multimedia project is not unlike pricing a still photography shoot:  usage is the key factor.  As a parallel example for a stills only assignment, I would price a shoot for photo usage in a hospital brochure or a university view book quite differently than I would price a print ad shoot for a consumer product — different usage requirements fall into different pricing categories.

When writing a project proposal for multimedia, take the usage into consideration when you come up with a base price for the project.  Your Assignment Agreement should spell out what usage is included, along with specifics of how many hours of production time, how many iterations of the feature are included, out-of-pocket expenses, and so on.  Anything above or beyond that agreement incurs additional charges, and this should be discussed with the client up front.  That way if they keep sending you back to tinker with the audio or images, they know that they will incur additional costs and you will be compensated.

Keeping good time logs to track the work you do is important.  I use a simple excel spread sheet to log the total hours I’m spending, and what I spend them doing.  This serves two purposes:

1.    I have records to use to make sure I will bill the client for anything over and above the original agreement;
2.    I have good records to use to estimate the next project.

If you are doing your first project and don’t know how long things will take you, go out and produce a project on your own to get a sense of it.  Yes, there will be a learning curve and hopefully you will get faster as you get more experience (just like with stills), but at least you will have a starting point.

In addition, it is a good idea to find out what it costs in your neighborhood to job out any piece of the project.  This is basic research:  make some calls to production houses or independent producers and see what it would cost to hire someone.  This will educate you as to what the market will bear in your region, and will help you develop a network of contacts should you need help.  Whether you do the production work yourself or hire someone else to do it, you want to make sure there is enough money in your budget to cover it.

As the mobile phone begins to replace the television and personal computer as the primary screen for interfacing with the Internet, and print continues to decline in popularity, this shift will impact the way photographers create photographs. While a two-page magazine spread can contain a rich array of subtle tones and fine details, the relatively low resolution screen of a computer or a mobile device cannot. To have impact on a small screen, a photograph must be tightly composed, cleanly lit and catch the viewer’s attention immediately.

Unfortunately, these small screens remove much of the subtlety that makes photography such a powerful medium. To bypass the limitations of the small screen, my guess is photographers will adapt to the technological limitations of mobile screens by using a series of images to tell a story, instead of relying on a single, all-encompassing photo.

Photographers who take time to rethink their compositions, lighting and visual storytelling options will be better suited to succeed in all mediums, regardless of the twists and turns technology throws at us.

Think of video as more than documentary or an interview; think about how you can use video to create physical and emotional space, architecture, think of ways to immerse people, control their experience. Begin to use video in more ways than just a moving version of your still imagery. Get one step ahead of the game in video instead of playing catch-up for the next ten years.

My thoughts on the future – in a word convergence.  I see continued convergence with the tools we use as visual communicators – still cameras and video cameras becoming one and the same.  And with that, the convergence of the two industries – still photography becoming part of larger production companies that will facilitate the video/motion needs of a client, as well as their still photographic needs.  This may be done with one camera, a high-end video camera, fully capable of producing high quality “frame grabs” that will be delivered to clients for their still image needs. I think we’ve only begun to see hybrid cameras being developed by the manufacturers.

As society continues to move more and more to an electronic platform and away from print as a means for communication, we will expect more than static imagery.  We will expect sound and movement.  And as technology enables the electronic pipeline to deliver information faster and seamlessly, the Internet will become our primary source for information.

The good news is that the Internet is open to all – a conduit for the democratization of communication.  But is this really true?  Or, will the information that we get be ranked by entities like Google?  Will this ultimately effect the distribution of what information we get as a society?  Those are the questions that run through my head and should be in everyone’s psyche.  Because if or when the Internet becomes our primary means of communication we must be diligent in keeping it open. We must be the watchdogs now to make sure that control isn’t secured by the few who are making the rules in their favor.
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

I think there will always be print, just like movies were still made when TV came along.  But it will be a niche in a greater array of visual platforms.  It may become something more high end, something that is meant to be kept, rather than be recycled at the end of the day.

My thoughts on the future are just that – thoughts and speculations.  It’s anybody’s guess really what the future holds.  But we are all creating the future now with the choices we make and let others make for us.

The Shoot

• Have a plan – When I first started learning video at the Platypus Workshop, we weren’t even allowed near the camera until we could articulate our “commitment” or our story in a concise, one paragraph statement.
• Make a shot list if appropriate – If you go into a shoot with a list of shots that you want to walk away with, you will work more efficiently as well as make sure you’ve covered what you need to.  But always allow room for the unexpected by letting serendipity happen.
• Shoot tighter – this will happen naturally if you have a shot list
• Avoid lengthy interviews – you’ll be glad you did in the editing room.
• Have the edit in mind when shooting – you’ll shoot more efficiently and you’ll already be laying out the story for the edit.

The Edit

• Gather all assets before you start – I make sure that I prep and import all the content I will be using in my edit – still photos, logs, graphics, music, media. That way I don’t have to leave my editing application once I begin the edit. This helps me stay focused on the story.
• Organize your media – I separate my interview clips, b-roll, music, still photos etc. into separate bins.
• Make good log notes when capturing or importing your video clips – this will help you quickly find and select the clips you need.
• Edit your best clips and place them on separate tracks – I usually scrub through my material, selecting the best interviews, b-roll and live action and put them on different tracks.  Then I can pick the clips appropriate to that point in the story when working on the overall story track.
• Determine the length of the piece and set in and out points – I frequently will create my “start” and my “finish” and then work on the middle of the piece.
• Lay down the narrative or voiceover first – I generally lay down my audio track whether it is a voiceover narrative or interviews.  This is what drives my story.  Then I lay down the visuals.
• Get your rough cut down first – I lay down my story first – before I even begin to color correct, adjust exposure, sweeten the audio or move still images.
• Feel the piece – Every piece has it’s own feel and pace that drives it.  Make sure that you achieve what you’re after in telling the story before polishing for the final cut.
• Get away from the computer – Sometimes we need to take a break in an effort to ultimately save time.  I find when I walk away from the technology and let the story move in my head and then go back to the edit – I ultimately save time in the long run because I don’t get bogged down in the technical details.