Brent Doscher Photography Blog

Website Design

2011-05-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned how uninspiring it is to not have a website. I want to touch a little more on that issue. There are time when having a website is worse than not having one. Most often, it's when your website is composed of nothing but some very very basic html. I'm not talking about minimalistic css, but rather no css and just text on a page with a couple images.

I COMPLETELY understand the desire to save money and not hiring a web designer, because when I wanted a website I decided to learn web design myself instead of paying someone to do it. But I didn't put up a website until I went through a few drafts of it and found a layout I liked, got a handle on the coding, and in general knew what I was doing.

The reason why it's so important is because your photos are judged by how they are presented. For example, a snapshot lying on a coffee table will be looked at entirely differently than if that same image were matted hanging in a white-walled gallery. Why? Because we assume that if the image is hanging there, then the choice to hang it must be deliberate. It's not just another snapshot, there's something the artist is trying to show or convey to the viewer. Yet it's the same exact photo as the one on the coffee table.

It's really no different with websites. You could have absolutely amazing photos, but if your presentation is akin to throwing a bunch of prints on a coffee table for people to rummage through, it's not going to draw the same attention as if they were displayed thoughtfully and deliberately, taking time to highlight specific images.

So... if you don't know web design and you don't want to learn, hire someone to design your site. Your website layout should be your fine art gallery, and your images should be the photos hanging in that gallery. The gallery has to look nice or else the photos in it won't appear as impressive.

On the other hand, if you don't want to learn web design and don't want to pay someone to build your website, that's your choice. However, you forfeit the right to complain about a potential wedding client deciding to hire their uncle with a DSLR to take their photos, because you've just done the same thing. :)

Stuff and life in general!

2011-03-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

I finally have a down minute so I figured I would take a minute to write a short blog post. Not a whole lot to blog about with BD Photography, Nuvision Action Image is where it's at!

I've finally turned my love for photography into a full-time job, and I love it! Nuvision now has regular employees and we are doing our own printing and order processing. It's very exciting, but very exhausting! Hopefully once everything is set up and good to go, it will require less time.

I'm not sure if I've addressed this, but a little while ago we did a shoot for WMUR. One day we did headshots for the news team, and the next day we were in there we did a green screen shoot with none other than fritz wetherbee! The locals will know that name! Everyone else, probably not... Nonetheless, it was awesome.

I did all that work with Jim Stankiewicz, who is a great partner to have on these gigs because he has the gift of gab and knows just about everyone, everywhere.

Off to Texas at the end of the week to shoot yet another Spartan Race for Nuvision. These events are totally nuts. Gladiator beatings, barbed wire crawls, horizontal wall scaling... and people pay to do it. We athletes are a very interesting breed....

Resumes and Cover Letters

2011-02-21T20:00:00.000-08:00

Hello World,

It's that time... I feel I have the duty to present you all with a few pieces of advice. It wasn't all that long ago that I was looking for jobs, sending out resumes, cover letters, etc. Now I am fortunate enough to be working for myself full-time, and the roles have switched. I am now hiring people. But my gosh, some of these responses to job listings... I just want to share a few pieces of advice I have, now that I have seen this whole song and dance from the other side of it.

- Do not send out mass job applications. Or, if you're going to do so, at least be creative about it. It's pretty obvious if you cut and paste your info for every job you find.

- DO write a cover letter. Your resume doesn't tell me about you, and with jobs that I am hiring for, it's not as much about experience as it is about personality. If you don't say anything other than including a resume, your resume could say "very personable," but if you haven't taken the time to actually write anything, then I don't believe it.

- On that note, write something, anything! Sending an e-mail in response to a job posting and only including your resume (or saying "i'm interested, please see attached") is akin to walking into an office, handing someone your resume, not saying a word, and leaving. Who wants to work with someone like that?

- Don't be afraid to apply for jobs that you may not necessarily be qualified for. I have had numerous people contact me and say upfront that they don't have some of the things I am looking for, but are eager to learn. I love learning, so I understand where they are coming from and like their honesty. That person is already way ahead the person who has experience but only wrote "here's my resume."

- This one is specifically for photographers... if you're serious about doing this as a profession, you NEED a website. If someone sends me a flickr link, it already gives me the impression they aren't serious about their work. A good website is pretty easy to make nowadays, and will cost you all of $40-50 a year. Trust me, you'll make all that back with increased business from your site.

- On that note.... your portfolio should show variety. Event galleries are one thing, but if you have a portfolio, not every shot should be from the same angle, taken with the same lens, and be lacking creativity. I had a portfolio much like this for a long time, and at one point I was going to apply for a membership at sportsshooter. I asked a fellow photographer about my images, and his response was "they're all good, but they're all the same." And it was true, unfortunately. But it got me thinking, and from that day on I have always made it a point to look for unique angles, use dramatic lighting, etc. I preach it to my photographers every day, and it's something that you need to start looking for if you want to really impress any potential clients. Have a good look at your portfolio and ask yourself "does this really show a client anything besides the fact that I own a) a digital camera and b) a standard level zoom?" You know where to go from there.

Take care all!

New website design

2011-01-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

Recently I redid my website. As some people may be confused, here's the deal.

The race photography aspect of Brent Doscher Photography has been transformed into Nuvision Action Image. It is a company that specializes in race and triathlon photography.

Meanwhile, Brent Doscher Photography is still in existence, however it has become a wedding/portrait/fine art company. This allows me to continue shooting all sorts of stuff I love.

I'm not a beginner to all this stuff, I've been doing portraits and weddings and all of those excellent things for years, I just never really advertised it. Well, now that the race photography is going well, I can take this opportunity to shoot more weddings and portraits, and hopefully having some shows in the upcoming future as well!

I hope everyone's doing well and you all like the new design! Take care!

What's in a watermark?

2010-09-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the hottest topics for event photography is the unauthorized use of images taken at events by participants who haven't paid for them. Nowadays with digital cameras and DSLRs everywhere, people seem to think more and more than photography should be free. One of the biggest complaints I hear is people telling me that photos are too expensive. Yes. They are expensive. That's because our job is very expensive too. Just look at some of the lenses we need to buy to help attain great image quality. Many pro photographers have upwards of $10k invested in their cameras and lenses alone.

So because photos are expensive, people simply say to themselves "whatever, I'll just take the one off the website." Despite numerous warnings, and copyright notices, they will do just about anything to get the image without paying for it. Now how would that work if we were talking about a good from a store? Yes, all those people who are determined to not pay for the goods would be shoplifting. Because our watermarked images are not "free samples" despite what many people think.

On most pages you will find a copyright notice, stating all images on the site or content is copyright to the owner of the site. What this means is that that photographer owns the rights to the image, just like a musician owns the rights to a song they recorded.

The watermark is our way to make it more apparent to people that the images aren't free, and to serve as yet another deterrent to stealing. If you purchase the image you get the watermark removed. If you don't, the logo stays there. However, what many people think is that they can use it without consequence, because the watermark is just a way for the photographer to advertise themselves.

Such is not the case. If you try to right click on an image and you can't, or it says the image is copyrighted, or there is a watermark taking up the majority of the photo, then changes are the owner would like you to buy it and support them. After all, this is our job. How would you appreciate it if someone just came and took something you put effort into making for free, without your consent? Yeah, it's frustrating.

Furthermore, what's even more interesting is that with the invention of facebook and the widespread popularity, every time you are uploading those watermarked images to facebook, you are violating the terms of use and stand to have your account removed. The Terms of Use states that you are not uploading any images that are not yours and you are not entitled to distribute. That watermarked image certainly does not belong to you. All the social media sites I know of have the exact same terms of use on photos.

Copyright abuse is a very hot topic for a reason - it happens all the time, everywhere. There is no such thing as "borrowing" a copyrighted image. If you take it from the website where it is being sold, without the consent of the owner, you're breaking the law. It is EXACTLY the same as taking a bottle of soda from the store without paying for it or having the consent of the seller, simply with digital media instead of a soda.

With that said, for all of you who have been kind enough to purchase photos from us, we absolutely love you. You keep our business going, and you understand that this is our profession and we need to pay our bills and put food on the table just like the rest of you. For those of you who don't want to pay for the photos... don't take them. It's just like in the real world. If you can't afford something, you save up and wait until you can. I don't steal a car because I like how it looks but don't have the money for it.

Waterville Valley Realty Article

2010-05-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Jan Stearns wrote up a short bit about the race on her blog at http://www.wvnh.com/content/news/1247/53/Brent-Doscher-s-pics-from-Black-Bear-Duathlon/

check out her site and blog for other info on Waterville Valley and their other events!

race season is upon us!

2010-05-23T20:25:00.001-07:00

I am so excited to be out photographing every weekend... but why oh why can't the races be later? I want to sleep in....

Hopefully so far we have been demonstrating to everyone that it's not just talk, we are actually here to reinvent race photography. Today we shot the LL Bean Time Trial, and after polling many Time Trialists and Triathletes, I came to the realization they hate seeing the same shot over and over. So we gave them what they wanted... a shot from the side, panning to make them super fast! The pictures came out GREAT, and can be seen at the site. Chris Clunie is a great photographer who is really getting a good handle on this sports photography thing, and you guys can thank him for all the excellent TT shots.

While Chris was up in Freeport, Ashley Heyl and I were in Waterville Valley, photographing the Black Bear Duathlon short and long course. The schedule got a bit messed up so unfortunately we weren't able to capture the short course athletes on the tail leg, but hopefully everyone can find a photo of themselves from the first run. Don't forget to check that lost and found!

I went all out and made a trek to the middle of a river to photograph the athletes coming down the hill. It turned out great, but I should have done it with the long course athletes instead of the short course as they only have one lap around. But check out the result! Certainly not your typical race image, huh?

The Black Bear Duathlon needs athletes! It is an absolutely incredible race and located in the most beautiful area around, yet they always have trouble attracting racers. Check it out next year! It's a great race to prepare yourself for the tri season, and not one bad word was spoken about the race (besides the heat!).

Until next time...

Photographer Bios

2010-03-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

Photographer bios are now up here

Update

2010-03-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

I'm on my way out the door to help one of my co-workers with a project he has. We are photographing the Maine drama tournament, and it certainly looks to be a great experience. Rusty is the man organizing this, and since our introduction more than a year ago, the two of us have worked side by side in many jobs and constantly bounce ideas off one another. He helps me out with my events, and I help him out with his. You can't work out a better deal than that!

A few updates for the website:

An upcoming races section has been posted. It's available at the bottom of the page, and alsohere.

I am looking to get the photographer's bios up soon. My photographers play a very important role in my company, as they are often the ones responsible for the excellent photographs you see on the site. For this, I am giving them all a shout-out and a little bio about them. This way you can also know some more details about who is photographing your race, and their style of shooting and background.

We have a referral program in place that goes like this - if you convince a race director/promoter to use Brent Doscher Photography and we sign a contract with them, you get a free basic print package, which includes a 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10. FOR FREE! Who doesn't love free stuff?

We're gearing up for a GREAT race season. 100% of the races that we shot last year have contracted us back for another year, as well as about 20 new races. I've been dreaming up new and exciting shots, and it's going to be an absolutely incredible season. My photographers and I can't wait!

One step to better sports photos

2010-01-29T14:40:00.000-08:00

People constantly are wondering what sets professional sports photographs apart from just snapshots. While I'm not going to lay it all out for you (I would put myself out of a job!) I can give you one tip that will help you capture better, more professional looking sports images.

Open up the aperture of your lens to its widest point.

You see, the big difference between good sports photos and bad sports photos (at least in our race-style application) is the depth of field. Depth of field is described as the amount of the image plane that is in focus compared to out of focus, or how large the zone of sharpness is on the image.

For example, the following image has been taken with a small aperture, meaning the lens diaphragm closes down a lot. The result is that the image has a much larger depth of field, and more of the image is in focus. If you stop down enough you can get the subject, foreground, and background all in focus. While this can be nice for something such as landscapes where you are trying to preserve all the details of the scene.

However, this doesn't suit sports photography very well. Often, what the photographer is trying to do is isolate the subject - when the subject (athlete) is in focus and the background is completely blurred out, the eyes know exactly what to focus on - the athlete. This leads toward a better looking image, and allows the subject really to jump out of the image. Like the example below... if it had a very wide depth of field, that cyclist in the back would also be in focus - and the eyes would want to focus on him as well. But instead, the wide aperture leads to a very shallow depth of field and blurs all of the background into a nice color and emphasizes the subject.

Now, what you're probably asking is "how do I achieve this effect?" Well, unfortunately, if you own a point and shoot, it's nearly impossible. Point and shoots are well known for their extremely large depth of field, and because of other specifics, it's not possible to reproduce a DSLR image with a point and shoot. But... if you do have a digital SLR, you can try this. Switch the camera to aperture priority mode. On a Nikon, this is represented by A, and canons use Av (aperture value). These modes allow you to tell the camera what aperture you want to shoot with, and the camera will figure out the rest in order to get a well-exposed image.

Pick the largest aperture that is available for your lens. The tricky part is that the lower the number, the larger the aperture is, and the wider the lens opens. an f/2.8 will blur out the background really well, but an f/22 aperture will look similar to a point and shoot's depth of field.

Try shooting some sports images with the widest aperture you can pick, and after reviewing them you may recognize that professional style that so many look for.

NO BUSINESS MEETINGS

2009-12-21T13:22:00.001-08:00

I met with a client in Topsfield, MA and experienced something I had never encountered before. After sitting for a little while going over some stuff, one of the workers came over and asked if we wanted anything. We responded no, though maybe I should have indicated I was going to purchase something later, as I was a bit hungry. I simply wanted to get into things first. So after sitting for a bit longer, the person again comes over and says

"I just wanted to let you guys know... I'm not the owner, but if she was here then she wouldn't let you have a business meeting, and wouldn't appreciate you meeting and plugging your computer in (using all that 25 cents of electricity!) and not buying anything. Since it's only me, I don't mind the company, but you shouldn't do it again."

Hmm... well I got up and bought a pastry, and she pulls out the "NO BUSINESS MEETINGS" sign from under the counter, shows it to me and says, "see?"

OK, I don't really understand the no business meetings rule, I'll be honest. Yeah, business meetings with tons of people are overpowering in a cafe, but 3 people just talking about a website? We're artsy people, we like coffee and good food. If you disallow these kind of meetings from your cafe, you're pretty much just shooting yourself in the foot and asking for less customers.

Before she said that, I would have continued to use this place for meetings - it's a nice small cafe with good food and probably good coffee. But now... probably not.

Just last week I sat in a cafe for 7 and a half hours editing photos for a client, and probably wouldn't have been bothered if we didn't buy anything.

Just a little rant from me as a business owner. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Curse the Winter!

2009-12-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

As winter rolls around, I'm trying to line up more potential jobs in order to pay the bills. I've been turned on to many ideas, and also have been working with some video production companies and doing camera operation at NH Public Television in Durham. They aren't the most exciting jobs, but I'm enjoying learning a new media. In many ways, video is much different. However, in some aspects it's incredibly similar.

Now through Dec 31st you can get 15% off any prints from my online SmugMug storefront using code brentdoscher15off. SmugMug finally introduced coupons recently. I'm reminded of those silly Windows 7 commercials with all the people saying "I wanted this, and now it's part of Windows 7. Therefore, Windows 7 was my idea." The story is sort of similar with SmugMug. I contacted them this summer after I had switched from PhotoReflect, asking if there was any way to have coupons available. They said they didn't have them at the moment, but they may be coming soon. And now, they're here. Smugmug coupons were my idea.

Matted and mounted prints are also available, however you have to order them directly through moi. There's a bit of Franglais to make your day.

Unexpected...

2009-11-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

Instead of photographing the tournament or the cross race, I ended up shooting for Capstone Photography this weekend. They contacted me to photograph the half marathon up at York Beach in ME, and I couldn't pass that up.

On Saturday I headed home to display some of my work at the John Stark Regional Arts/Craft fair. It was a good cause to support, as all the money raised went towards the John Stark Visual Arts Fund. Considering my photography began at JSR, it seemed fitting to have it be my first art fair. I only sold one print, but chatted with many people about photography and where I'm headed in general. It was a good experience, and hopefully some more business opportunities will grow out of it.

we're live in 3...2...1...

2009-11-04T17:03:00.000-08:00

And it's up! The website is up and running, hopefully without too many hiccups! I had registered the domain brentdoscher.com earlier this summer but until now just had it redirect to my smugmug site. I figured it was about time to put up a real website, so I took it upon myself to learn how to code a website and create it in Dreamweaver. A week later, we have our finished product!

I have to say, I'm actually pretty proud of myself, haha. Before this I knew squat about web design. I knew how to make font bold or italicized, that that's pretty much it. Adobe Dreamweaver was actually quite easy to work with once you got the hand of the basics, and I have to say I love youtube and related sites for all the user-submitted tutorials. I'm pretty sure my contact page doesn't work correctly yet, but that will be updated soon.

I tried to make everything as simple as possible - no it's not the prettiest website ever, but it's simple and gives you the information you need, and I think that's a lot better than a flashy superfluous site.

I also had my friend who is blind and uses a program to read the pages on his computer test out my site for me. He said it works great for him. I'm happy to be able to make a site that is available for everyone to use.

If you have any suggestions, please shoot me an e-mail and let me know!

As far as photography goes, this weekend is a toss-up still. Saturday is the craft fair at John Stark Regional High School. JSR is my former high school and pretty much where the passion for photography was born, and it's exciting to have it all come full circle like this.

On Sunday it's unclear as to where I will be. I'll be in Mass somewhere, either shooting another cyclocross tournament like the one I did last weekend in Hampton Falls, NH, or a Tae Kwon Do tournament. I'm currently communicating with both to see what the deal is with each of them.

Welcome!

2009-11-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Brent Doscher Photography Blog! This was just started, so there's not much interesting information available here right now. But in the future, this blog will be home to info about BD Photography including upcoming events, photo tips, and race recaps! So keep checking back, you won't be let down!