stop!!!!

ok, please, no more phone calls or e-mails to Karen Mullarkey!!!  the woman is overwhelmed...Karen  says her e-mail is on total overload...her computer is smoking!!! she cannot handle any  more portfolios or inquiries from us  at this point...

from now on , if we get a request like this, i think i will have to select a few of you to submit...an "open call" will just create chaos.... this should now lead to a discussion on how to approach an editor, how many pictures to show, etc etc....actually, i know Karen's frustration....most of you have websites with just way way too much to view...maybe this is terrific for your friends etc., but busy editors trying to see what a photographer can do, just is not going to "edit" for you...

there should be a big difference between your web presentation and your archive...two totally different animals....many fail to see the difference.....

rather than really seeing the good pictures you do have, many editors will just exit in frustration over just too too much miscellaneous material...they do not want to go on a treasure hunt...they want to see the really best work ...fast, concise, clear...period...

this will lead me now to interview two or three professional editors for you, so you can hear it directly from them...

this is a topic that comes up from time to time...or maybe even all the time...EDITING, PRESENTATION....
do most of you feel that editing/presenting is your most formidable task???

Comments

[Michael Kircher]

I feel I am much better at it than I once was, not very long ago. But yes it is still a formidable task! As I think you know. ;^}

[Lance Rosenfield]

editing is tough, there's no doubt about it. it takes much time and experience to learn the art of a good edit. i've seen one editor edit a series of pictures completely differently than another editor standing right next to her, and they both were adamant in their choices.

speaking of editing and karen, i sent her this little web-gallery (before 'stop!') that BEN KRAIN helped me with:

http://rosenfieldphotography.com/data/web/KYDerby02/index.html

ben saw things i didn't see in my pictures.. it's a joy to edit together like this. but ben would edit differently than you, or karen, etc. so.. was this the right edit to send??

so yes, when putting together an edit to show editors, one has to think of the magic formula: what do i need to show, what does this editor want to see, do i make the edit universal or specific??? all of this and still maintaining your 'voice'... this is not for the weak at heart. i think experience just pays huge dividends here.

i look forward to hearing from editors you bring to the forum.

cheers all,
lance

[Pete Marovich]

Even as a director of photography and photo editor, I find it difficult to edit my own work. I think many do. I try to seek out others opinions I respect as often as I can to help weed out the excess. A pool of 3 or 4 friends that have the time to look is always good to have.

On the subject of reviewing portfolios for prospective employees, my biggest issue is with photographers who fail to follow the directions in the job ad.

The last time I looked for a photographer for our staff, I specifically requested that the photographers have at least 2 years experience with a paper and in addition to the 15 or 20 best portfolio images, I wanted to see clips from two consecutive weeks of the basic assignments that they shoot. My reason for this is to see what a photographer can come back with from the mundane boring assignment. Anybody that has worked for a while should have 20 great images. I wanted to see the level of the "average" work.

Very few included this material.

[Joni Karanka]

Wow, I have an RSS feed for road trip. And I was about to say that next week I'm going to London for a few days with Maciej Dakowicz. If something is needed over there and it can be shot in a couple of days we can try to sort it out. I will not email Karen, but it sounds like this blog has quite a good appeal :o)

[lisa Hogben]

Hey how appropriate is this!

They say everything is about timing and I just this second went live with the relaunch of my website.

www.lisahogben.com

I was about to write a post about it and ask for everyone's thoughts on content and animation.

I have worked on it for a while and I guess what I wanted to do was to get the stories out there, but I can rearrange the content on the gallery pages quite easily, so come on folks be brutal I am sure I could stand to lose a few!

Pity about Karen, even though I would have loved her to have a look at my work I certainly won't harass her now!

David about the stories, I am enthusiastic again now I have the website finished. It was really weighing me down. I like the 'Block' story best, though someone was murdered there last night. They were on ICE which is a bit scarier than heroin because people are just very violent. Never-the-less I should do a story on the impact on the kids of all this, one of my friends grand-daughters has been put in care but I don't think that is the way to go. there are many issues out there least of all a system that is so incredibly bureaucratic that it buries people alive.

I mean I am going to shoot it anyway eventually so I might as well do it now!

Hope your friend Karen recovers from email burn-out!

[Pete Marovich]

Also, my portfolio site is in one place and my archive is on Digital Railroad. The portfolio site has a lot of material, but I think it is easily navigated.

But I welcome comments from those who think it needs to be easier.

[Rafal Pruszynski]

LOL I knoew this would happen...

David,

since we are now 2 or 3 posts past the one I asked you the question,
could you please tell me exactly what you need for the Look 3 presentation? Size of files, soundtrack (christ, Ive never thought about music to my photos, so that will be he challenge), etc? How to submit?

[Eric Espinosa]

DAVID,

Editing is indeed a tough job...I was actually doing my best yesterday to come up with one to send you from the Antigua work. I do not know if you had a chance to see it but this is always a difficult task. I usually feel that over time, it becomes more self-evident...You eventually remember just a few pictures from your own work and often these turn out to be the only ones worth keeping.

Beyond editing let me tell you a funny story that happened to me earlier today... Needless to say that I feel somewhat annoyed with myself that I may not have come up yet with an assignment idea that you really seemed to have liked so I was still thinking about this BUS STOP suggestion that I had made to you. At lunch time today, as I had a break at work, I took my camera, went downrtown in the ghetto to go in front of this BUS STOP and started to take a few pictures. I had previously been there on Saturday and as the stop is very near the central farmer market, it tends to be rather busy...Needless to say that today, this was not the case. I still waited to see if I could make a few shots and eventually I had this tall intimidating black "gentleman" who came to ask me :WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?" I tried to stay calm and told the guy that I was here to photograph the BUS STOP...Can you imagine the face he made...He looked as if I was insane and his answer was "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"...I could tell this man was not sharing my excitement on this topic (he seems to share this with you David :) :)....With my best French accent, I started to diffuse the tension and crack a joke...but the man was not in a funny mood....eventually the last sentence he told me before leaving me alone was that I was either a "FUCKING GENIUS OR A FUCKING IDIOT"!!!! I actually laughed, thinking to myself that he was possibly right...what was I doing here....I went back to work...No great shots today...Maybe this is a indeed a fucking topic and I need to be more creative...

Cheers,

ERIC

[david alan harvey]

LANCE....

nice to have you back ...i was just about to send out a search party!!

yes, yes...you will get many opinions from editors and photographers alike....but, one thing right off the top i think is that almost everyone needs to just REDUCE the AMOUNT of work they show...sure you need the right pictures and there is no "right"....but, showing 100 pictures or more is going to be "wrong" even if the pictures are "right"...

when will i see you amigo???

cheers, david

[david alan harvey]

RAFAL...

i always check back two or three posts....i had not forgotten you...i just do not know the answer...but i will by tomorrow....actually if you e-mail mike , he can tell you fast...courvoisierm@hotmail.com

cheers, david

[carlos martinez]

Hello David,

I have posted some times but I think I have bad luck and my post rest buried in the previous pages...

have you seen some of what i wrote about projects???

please let me know...

saludos!

[david alan harvey]

CARLOS MARTINEZ....

no bad luck!!! yes i read your proposals, and i wrote you back today earlier.... you should always look under the post where you wrote to me....please look again....and sometimes i write to someone else first, because some proposals require more thinking on my part than others....tranquillo y paciencia por favor

saludos, david

[David McGowan]

I didn't email Karen, but I'm always down for a paying gig.

As far as the web presentation goes, I have a free running slideshow that automatically plays 30 pics with my contact info at the bottom. (Is 30 too much?) The idea is there should be something there that catches an editor's eye without much more effort. Of course it's easy enough to move on to the journal and see entries linked to galleries that are a bit more loose, but not too redundant.

I'm sure my editing could use refinement, though.

[carlos martinez]

Ahhhh! David... sorry

yes i did not see your post under my proposal...

and yes... i know cristina garcia's work and i met her in here this easter...

her work is very spectacular in terms of the intensity of the scenes she selected to photograph...

i have a different perspective about maria lionza's cult... i do not want to emphasize only the most spectacular... but to show it like more normal religious practice... what in fact it is...

there are summit moments in the year... but the cult is present along the whole year but less intense...

you can see in my page what i have done until now:

www.carlosmanuelmartinez.com

look in SORTE link...

saludos y gracias!

[chris bickford]

It helps me to think of a website as a little work of art. Not so much meaning that it should be frilly, but that it should present a unified concept--a strong signature style. I still have a couple of shots in mine I need to take out; they are great shots, but they obstruct the "flow" of the presentation.

An art teacher of mine told me once that sometimes you have to get rid of your favorite part of a painting in order to salvage the unity of the painting. I don't know if that makes sense in a web portfolio, but if you have one lone killer shot that just doesn't jibe with anything else in your portfolio, then maybe you should keep it hidden up your sleeve until you get some more photos that work alongside it. Yes? No?

I don't have a whole lot of experience with photo editors, but I think if you have a site that suggests a good sense of sequencing, storytelling, and conceptual cohesiveness, then the viewer already sees your ability to construct a story, set a mood, develop a project, etc.

[Herve]

David, I promise I did not call, or e-mailed anything to Karen! "not me" here... ;-)

No problem with editing here, especially if under/overlined by a text, mine or another. I could easily edit, for example, my linked Olympic torch series to one (monk laughing while holding and looking at dalai lama's portrait), or 3 or 4 more if needed to follow a reporter's article.

As you may remember, David my "emerging" project had only 15 or 16 shots, which was about OK (if too many regarding impact or quality).

Well....I have the April issue of Natl Geo, with the Sahel as major feature article in front of me. Let me count...

....15 shots (by an africa specialist, Pascal Maitre). I was right! ;-)))

Sharing is another thing. I am on a public site with 2000 shots on it so far. Travel, fairs, festivals, flowers etc.... It's fun and rewarding to share with the WWW, without pretention, yet, trying one's best to select and edit pictures to convey the fun of being here and there, relating to the world with a camera. No secret, rather easy to find, but I would never make a link of it here. A portfolio is not... a shoebox!

I reiterate something I said before. Most of the great links I see here have one major sin. No text, no presentation, it's supposed to be "pure" photography with a mere title/location, or something. And we end up looking at each shot for itself, which works only if you have 12 shots only on that site (like a portfolio).

These days, few photo series, photo books, are not accompanied by a text, a poem, whatever. It just helps tremendously to drop the "exhibit" style presentation and have one's pictures telling a A to B or Z story. If your great shot that day don't fit, too bad. Its time will come, another day, another series. hey, maybe a major...Exhibit! :-))))

[audrey bardou]

Hello,

All my congratulations to Patricia and I hope that many of you will pick up(take down) a work!

I still have difficulty choosing my images, only, but I have a new technique. Lors that I work on a new subject, I post(show) on a magnetized picture(board) my editions of current reading, and at the end of week to see 2, to see more, the images go out of the prize(lot), it also allows me to have a general view of my subject. Later, I appeal to a knowledge of the world of the photo, Alain Mingam, who helps me (when he has time!) to choose my final selection and my order of presentation for competitions, but I have few experiences, seen that I treated only 2 subjects!

Kind regards,
audrey

[wrobertangell]

hello all
on this topic of edit and presentation, I find myself talking to my other self, all the time.
I guess thats why I like my blog, its just really simple, easy to opperate, straight to the pictures, plus a little text if you want.
man that shit is golden!
I realise the importance of your book though, that has got to be solid.
has anybody been selfpublishing there portfolios, I like the look of blurb. for that.
looking forward to your editor dialogues.
thanks David.

[richo]

Funny, when I have read your previous post I somehow expected this reaction, your current post and the situation it describes.

When I saw it today I had smile on my face.

Wish you all nice day!
-r-

[Daniel W]

ya, it's tough

[Damon Coulter]

wrobertangell. Just had my portfolio printed by blurb. You get 40 pages as the satndard rate which is plenty enough for about 25 to 30 pictures (with title pages and introductions and white space to look good). Not bad price, nice quality. Boost the reds a little though as they print with a slight green cast makes everything look colder. I am hearing though (if you look over on lightstalkers you'll read a lot of this) that the colour-cast you get, or not, is a bit of a lottery. Atthe end of the day it's a cheap book but I am happy enough and am taking it around the local papers while I'm back in the UK.
It is hard to edit of course. I like the friends route but friends can tend to like everything you do and can be unhelpful so I just try to be unemotional and put in only the best pics. For a portfolio this works okay, but for a story or photo essay it is much harder.
Damon

[Charlie Mahoney]

ALL:

This is DEFINITELY the most difficult task. I, like others here, usually consult with professionals that I trust, but since photography is so subjective, I often find they just contradict one another. Photos that one throws out, others love, so I often decide to go with my own gut feeling.

Case in point, the BBC story, I submitted about 25 photos, they selected 12 and of those twelve I was really surprised by their selection and the order, so go figure.

[marcin luczkowski]

LANCE

prints exchange? witch size you want?
email me.

[Simon Griffee]

Editing is certainly a formidable task for me.

My editing difficulties, in descending order of difficulty:

1. (Toughest) Having a story to tell in the first place.

2. (Avoiding laziness and letting go) Admitting to myself that I have nothing good in the current take and letting go of the 'almosts'.

3. (Too many pictures) Digital makes it much easier to shoot a great number of photos, which makes editing them down more difficult. I think Cartier-Bresson was right when he said (in The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1968 edition):

"We must, however, refrain from snapping rapidly and mechanically, because in this way we only burden ourselves with useless shots that encumber the memory and cloud the clarity of the whole picture."

Recently I've been trying to take less shots while paying more attention. I almost never look at the LCD after taking a shot, especially when photographing people.

4. (Sequencing) Putting the photos in a sequence that tells the story. This is closely related to number 1 above. I often find that I 'invent' the story while editing and change my mind about what I want to say, which shows that I fail at number 1 above…

At any rate, I've come to realize that editing is as important as taking the pictures in the first place if your objective is a unified and coherent work such as a picture story, photo essay, etc.

Regarding presentation, I've learned here that accompanying words and descriptions are very important if you want to help someone quickly understand what you are trying to say with your photographs.

When I see elaborate, 'flashy' presentations I find that it usually detracts from the work, and is often a veil over lousy work (related to number 2 above).

Your presentation must not take precedence over your work. The presentation plays a supporting role, not the main role. Simple is best (and simple is not easy!)

Off to photograph, to edit, and to work on my site redesign!

[david alan harvey]

HERVE, CHRIS, DAVID M.,SIMON, CHARLIE...

you guys got it right...

WROBERTANGELL, DAMON..

i have not actually published with Blurb, but if i were going to do one of those self published books, i would give them a try...all of those companies are, i believe, using the same type HP printing machine...so, i suppose "quality control" is not going to be perfect given the amount of material they must have...but, book publishing is never perfect anyway....in a book of 100 pictures, you will always find two or three "off"...

ALL....

i think at least one or two of you will get this job from Karen...i do hope it works out for you...

on editing again...there are two things...choice of pictures and choice of how many pictures...generally speaking, most show too many pictures....

you will go crazy asking too many opinions of your work...i remember watching the Pictures of the Year competition being judged (5 "judges") when i was a college student at Missouri...i never wanted anyone's "opinion" about my work from that day forward...i have since been one of those "judges"....that is not any better either...

YOU need to know (just as you need to know when to take the picture in the first place) OR you need a good collaborator....but not 10 collaborators!!

OK, QUICK POCKET GUIDE TO EDITING AND YOUR LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHY:

first, STUDY the visual classics (painting, sculpture, photography, film)...

READ E.B.White and Japanese haikus...

then GO WITH YOUR GUT, spinning out your own style either revolutionary or tangential...

then YOU CHOOSE 10 pictures...show them...print them well....treat them with respect...

then, FORGET those first 10...

put them in the closet..AVOID falling in love with those first 10 good ones (the downfall of many)....

be HONEST with yourself....look in the mirror and tell the truth to that person...

then, go shoot 10 more!!...etc etc...

if you are a passionate photographer, you will always have 10 more...

if you think you are "done", then you are...

SOMEDAY you can go back and get those first 10 out of the closet!!!! but not yet!!!

peace, david

[bobblack]

didnt send an email, as i was going to tell Marina about Karen last night and then got sidetracked on a different conversation....

editing....

for look3 i edited into 10 pics, keeping out my favorite pic (abstract photo of woman's face), in hope that the story behind those photos might make sense....or not...

by for now...

b

[bobblack]

Chris Bickford...

send you my email...

cheers
b

[Pete Marovich]

I agree with David.

Everyone knows the saying... "opinions are like assholes...."

I think it is good to get feedback from photographers whose work you respect and opinion you trust. But the bottom line is that it is YOUR work and YOUR vision. You HAVE to be the final judge and jury over what you present.

It also helps to avoid blaming someone else when something doesn't work. After all, no one looking at the image or images is going to say "damn, that guy who gave his opinion to this photographer was an idiot!"

There are two kinds of people who look at photography, other photographers and everyone else. If you are shooting to impress your peers and value the impact your work has on them or on contest judges instead of the population that you are trying to tell a story to or bring awareness to then maybe your motivations are a bit misguided.

We as photographers sometimes get too caught up in whether a photo is technically as good as it could be and a whole lot of other noise that can get in the way of what we are trying to accomplish.

As William Hurt said in the Big Chill, "Sometimes you just need to let art flow over you." (paraphrased)

But lets face it... that is just my "opinion" (grin)

[Simon Griffee]

David,

Thank you for the wonderful Quick Pocket Guide to Editing and Your Life in Photography!! So helpful as always!!!

[andrew sullivan]

Editing is constantly on my mind, often to the point of distraction. And there's so much contradictory advice out there in the form of books, experts, etc... It seems that the best way to go is to use intuition in choosing pictures that best represent not only what I can shoot, but also what I want to shoot.

What do you think of treating my web presence like this: have a main link where my 15 best images are, no matter where they're from, and then indicate within the caption where on the site the complete story is located.

David, your Quick Pocket Guide to Editing reminded me of something I think Hemingway said about writing a novel. Write the first 80 pages, then throw them out. That spot is where you should start your novel.

It really is all about authorship, isn't it?

andrew

[Lance Rosenfield]

DAVID.. if I get on the ball then I'll see you (and everyone else here?) in c'ville.. Off to San Miguel in a few days.. Mezcal for b'fast!!

MARCIN.. I just emailed you about the print.. A4 is good.. send me your address.. looking forward to it!

ANDREW... let's catch up my man..

BOBB... ??????? :) :) :) :) !!!!!!!!!!

[Rafal Pruszynski]

I still havent gotten down to editing to 10 pics for Look3 but I have an idea of which ones will make it. Still not sure if I should choose the 10 highest impact shots or try to vary speeds and moods...10 photos might be a bit too few to tell much of a story so I think I might go for the first option.

[Jonathan Hanson]

Editing is hard to do, and its something I struggle with but you have to look at as, "why put work in front of someone that will make them question what you can do." Leave the viewer wanting more. I always try to put down my top 10 singles and then a picture story for a total of no more than 20 images. I also try to edit for my audience, i.e. no commercial work in a PJ portfolio etc. I try and get as much feed back from people as I can then go back and edit taking into consideration what I heard.

What are you trying to say with your pics?
What do you want to show?

[david alan harvey]

RAFAL....

for a slide show 10 is plenty....10 of you with 10 photographs each is 100 pictures which comes out to about a 10-15 minute slide show....trust me, we do not want it to be longer....i do many slide shows, i sit through many slide shows...20 mins is the absolute max max and shorter is better...an exhibit is a different thing....we are the lead off presentation for the day, so we have an amazing spot...i will also post this slide show here for all to see...if i were you i would go for the most intimate emotional pictures..thanks in advance for sending...i assume you are in touch with mike....

cheers, david

[erica mcdonald]

DAVID..hi..

about the slideshow, the images I was talking about are at

http://www.ericamcdonaldphoto.com
then New York, then 40 Days

I feel closer to the new work and would be more excited to have it seen, and I have some audio too I recorded.. but of course this is your call..

thanks for looking..I'd be happy to swap out the older for the new...but would probably need to send Michael files today/tomorrow before I leave town till next week, unless that isn't too late.

[Akaky]

Editing my work; frankly, I don’t know how. Let me rephrase that: editing my pictures, I don’t know how, not really. When I edit what I write I know what I’m doing: no passive voice, not too many adjectives (I struggle with that one), stay in the same tense, make sure my spelling and punctuation are correct, and when the sentences are long, as they invariably are, make sure they can carry the load. I violate Strunk and White’s precepts on a more or less constant basis: I don’t omit needless words, not if they add to the effect I want to create, my sentences are almost always too long, and if the language police ticketed for semicolon use I’d be broke in a week. I could change my style, I suppose, but if everyone followed Strunk and White’s instructions, we’d all sound like Hemingway, and how boring would that be? Taken to the logical extreme, the people who think The Elements of Style is nothing less than the inspired Word of God vis-à-vis the use of written English would have to believe that Laurence Sterne and William Faulkner were lousy writers because they violated the Elements on just about every page of their work. Dr. Johnson thought that Tristram Shandy would not last, Hemingway mocked Faulkner’s “cornpone” style; I think history shows both men were way off the mark.

I also try to avoid straining for an effect; I don’t always succeed with this, either, but I can usually tell when I reread what I’ve written that I’m pushing something too hard. I just dropped a piece about the worst opera ever written, La morta d’Ella, the tragic story of the love that made Bologna great, because the idea was just too flimsy to support a thousand or so words. I was hitting the reader over the head with a joke in every sentence, which you really can’t do; that sort of thing might have worked for Henny Youngman, but he’s the only one it worked for. So La morta d’Ella has gone the way of all flesh.

As for editing pictures, this is something of a mystery to me. I did manage to weed my football action shots down from 399 to 17 or so. I was very scientific in how I selected the weeds: I took out the pics of the other team, except for one of them missing a field goal. If they’d made the extra point, I would’ve taken that out as well. As for sequencing to tell a story, I don’t usually tell stories with pictures; the pictures are just shots of people or events or things that struck me as interesting at the time. I’m not sure how you would sequence something like that. I am pretty sure, though, that I shouldn’t give up my day job for photography.

[Natan Moss]

hey david,

haven't been on for a few days, did i miss something about the 10 slides at look3? i was planning on going, but never heard when the slide show was happening. should i email mike about those kind of questions?

natan

[Jason Hobbs]

hi david, hi folks,

editing really can be a very tough business. sometimes i find harder than making the photos in the first place. couple it with sequencing pictures and you can have a real headache on your hands.

i think its one of those processes where there are no right answers. why one editor would choose one selection of pictures, while another editor would choose a different selection is simply down to opinion. of course the purpose of the work is import...what is being said... the feeling to be conveyed...where it is to be seen; these surely are influencing factors. but ultimately its that thing of personal opinion.

i think the important thing is to really know why you are choosing a particular picture, why you are putting it in that place in the sequence. if it comes to it you must be able to justify why it is there. if you whole heartedly believe that it is worthy, if it says something, then that is the reason to choose it.

for me it is largely based on a feeling.....i just know. someone else may disagree, that is up to them.....but if i think i have made the right choice i will fight tooth an nail for that picture.

anyway, i'm off for now.

take care everyone.

Jason

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

DAVID...

Thank you very much for this quick pocket guide. Regarding E.B.White, do you recommend "The Elements of Style" or his articles in the New Yorker magazine? Maybe both?

[Pete Marovich]

Oh come on... Surely he means Charlotte's Web!

(GRIN)

[Lance Rosenfield]

I've just spent way too long trying to catch up on this snapshot of what must be over 1,000 posts... assignments, new web-sites, new faces/voices, panos getting punked, david back in at kent avenue, it looks like rafal and panos get along now (maybe?), bob spewing gems, etc. etc. take note of this time, my friend, it is something to behold.

[beatrix]

David,

Great recommendations for editing! I was just about to take a look at Gombrichs "Story of Art" and was finally able to read Susan Sontags essay "On Photography" :)

Saludos

beatrix

[david alan harvey]

ALL....

i spoke with Karen briefly who said she got almost 40 portfolios from this group in just those few hours!!! said she would look at them all...this obviously means we have so so many folks here who never write, but certainly read...

another quick note about editing and choosing your work....as i have pointed out many many times, you must be the primary person who chooses your work...this, of course, has nothing to do with the potential buyers of your work ...you really cannot control what others will like anyway...

so, naturally i always HOPE editors and various clients and print buyers will like my work enough to purchase either my time or my "inventory", but i still do not edit for "them"...that is like a dog chasing his tale...."they" may edit differently for a magazine than might i, but that is fair enough....but, i always get way way involved in the choosing process even with clients..most clients appreciate good intelligent input..you must do your best work, and hope for the best, but trying to "psyche out" what a buyer will like when you are shooting is, i think in the long run, a losing battle..having said that, you should of course seek out clients who are most likely to publish the style of work you like to shoot...and book publishing should be 100% you (ok, 99%)

LANCE...

yes, this forum sometimes takes on the tone of theatrical drama .. lots happening always...i cannot even keep up...we are all pleased to have you back here and please try to come to c'ville...i mean dude, would you really want to miss whatever drama is most likely to occur in that normally sleepy quiet Virginia town??? so, put your spurs on and saddle up..

cheers, david

[marcin luczkowski]

BOB

May I have ask to you, please?

I will write essay about my hometown in english but I need correct it and you are the best for it.
So if you will have some time maybe you could do this for me?
Give me a note please.

peace
Marcin

[marcin luczkowski]

DAVID

I hope you still have power to keep this blog foward. I really do.

hugs
Marcin

[nelson d'aires]

Lisa,

i just visited your website and it's very well designed. but i think it will be better to put custom navigation in the tearsheets section, the actual "slideshow" don't work for me, or, put the slide with less seconds between tearsheets. i'm not a regular user, so i know some web stuf and i know the system that powered up your gallery and tearsheets, and the navigation with keys works very nice, but the majoraty of users doens't know that they can navigate with keyboard arrows navigation, unlsse you tell them :)

have a nice work!
nelson

[mike]

Marcin,
If it would help at all, I'd be happy to assist with any Polish to English translation if needed...

[nelson d'aires]

what can i say, i love editing (well sometimes no :p ), because it compels me to see with big eyes the photos that i failed and with that i make some kind of mental notes to correct in the future if possible. but i need time to edited, i need to stay way a few days and only after that see the photos i made. i think it's because of this that i don't like to shoot with digital, i hate shoot i turn off the camera from the eye just to watch in the small monitor on the back of the camera! with this i feel i break some feelings in a certain situations. but as always there is some works that this digital thing is a plus.

web presentation... i think having permalinks to individual features/gallerys (to send by email if is needed without the need to waste time to figured out how to get there) is important, and in part that's why i "don't like" the majoraty of flash sites...
if is photography that you want to show try to keep clean design and let photos do the talk.
i like very much to have a page/portfolio with the essence/mood of my work in 10/15 photos (more or less) like this for example that i use in kameraphoto: http://www.kameraphoto.com/portfolio/na/

and sometimes i like to show my editing and for that i build this kind of presentaion (yes, i have learn how to make websites in my blank photographic periods): http://www.kameraphoto.com/features/na/againstfire/againstfire.html

all the best,
nelson

[marcin luczkowski]

Mike

yes, yes, yes!!! your polish-to-nglish is great if you could help me I will be grateful!!!!
I will gave you a note.
many many many thanks.

marcin

[Subhrajit Basu]

"do most of you feel that editing/presenting is your most formidable task???"

david, thanks for bringing up this subject once more! to me, "most formidable task" is also an understatement in this regard! hope to get shown the light at the end of the tunnel by this forum soon.