The cost of printing your own images, using an inkjet printer is always a subject  you can get into with other photographers. What’s the most economical means of making our work available to others for view or possible sale? Without discussing the pros and cons of “publishing” our work on the Internet, it seems to me that regardless of the cost, printing our own work today, much like it was when we burrowed ourselves  in our darkrooms, may not be the most economical use of our time or our financial resources, but…

But, what? Well, for one, printing our own images via modern inkjet printers gives us the ultimate control of the final product. For those of use who like this creative control, being able to work at a desk, in broad daylight (or at least not in total darkness) and not having to breathe chemical vapors by the hour is a great advantage. Also, the ability to come home from a shoot, download images from our cameras and immediately print high quality images is a great advantage over the “olden days” when most of use would send our film away to remote processors and wait for snail mail to deliver those small yellow boxes (for those of us who shot slide film) before we could see the fruits of our labors.

A framed 8" x 10" image cost me less than $1 to print (for paper and ink).

So, to me, the actual cost, by comparison, is nominal. That said, nominal doesn’t mean inexpensive. I’ve spoken to photographers who have figured their costs, when printing 24″ x 26″ color prints, on Epson Enhanced Matte paper, to be about $1 per square foot or $6 per print. After trying to keep track of how many prints I’ve made for a specific project and how much I paid for ink and paper for these prints, I estimated about a penny per square inch (for ink) and about 70 cents per sheet printing 13″ x 19″ images on the Epson R2400 printer. That comes to more than $3 per print. Still not too bad, to my way of thinking.

Then, (always taking the most direct route last) I Googled “Cost of printing with Epson 2400″ and came upon a report by Red River paper that showed my estimate to be close, but more importantly gave me what looks like sound evidence of the real cost. I’d encourage anyone who want to have some sound evidence behind their number to click here – Red River Paper – and look at their report. It details their methodology which, to a non-scientific person like myself, seems pretty sound.

Brown-Brook-Reflections . . . printed on Mpix Endura Metalic paper is proving to be a real attention-getter. My cost through Mpix, less than $15 for a 16" x 24" print.

Of course, we can always go to someone like Mpix, who I think does excellent work, and taking advantage of their discounts (often 25%) get dramatic 16″ x 24″ prints on their Endura metallic paper for as little as $15. And, besides a reasonable price and excellent work in my experience, they’re quick. I just had eight prints delivered in about three days for a show I have up at the Crawl Space in Little York, NY (just south of Syracuse). Just about everyone who’s visited so far has given the prints rave reviews. Of course I like to think the images have something to do with the reviews.

Spring is bounding into our lives in Central New York, faster than we could have imagined only a week ago. Today almost seemed like summer with the mercury rocketing to 87 degrees. Go figure.

But, spring is spring and who hasn’t marveled at that spring flower suddenly bursting through the decaying mulch laid down a year ago.

We’ve all enjoyed the beauty of the first blossoms of spring but typically from some distance. Maybe we actually squatted down over that spring crocus and admired its delicate blossom. Today, I went one better. I got down and dirty, as they say. With my Nikkor 105mm macro lens affixed to my D300 I peered into a miniature crocus in my wife’s garden. Wow! Delicate and colored just for the season…the Easter season that is. Today is Good Friday and the official color of the day is violet. I think the color of this crocus is about as close as you can get.

I could see that an even closer inspection would be revealing. So, 12 mm and 20 mm extension tubes inserted between the 105 and the camera, I inched closer. The sun was slowly dropping beyond the treeline and I needed more light so I increased my ISO from 200 to 800. With a shutter speed of just 1/60 sec, I shielded the blossom from the gentle breeze with my hat and set the f-stop at f/8 so I wouldn’t have too much or too little depth of field. I wanted the bright yellow stamen in sharp focus to contrast with the delicate petals that would be softened as they fell out of focus.

For a half-hour I was engrossed by the crocus’ beauty. I think of it as my spring vacation.

Can’t wait for tomorrow and another vacation in the world of macro photography.

This past weekend I drove from my home in Central New York, eight hours to a hotel in Livonia, MI. My mission was to learn all I could from a man whose success as a macro photographer I admired. I left home before sunrise on Friday morning and drove steadily until mid-afternoon because Mike Moats was going to be conducting his Macro Boot camp at that hotel.

A basket of feathers

I expected to learn some tricks (some people might call them techniques) that would help me take macro or close-up photos better – more like Mike’s. The bottom line is, I came away with some nice macro/close-up images, captured under conditions most photographers would swear were not appropriate for my objective.

Mike had attracted 40 photographers of varying skill levels to his boot camp. Some barely understood how their cameras worked. Others were skilled, award winning and published. Stacy Neidzwiecki, for example arrived with several awards under her belt and two new books, only recently released. Jackie Curts works at the Zoo in Indianapolis and uses every opportunity to practice her craft.Her business card reads, “portraits of pets, children, and families” and “nature photography.” Her images were proof that practice works.

A Withering Tulip

Others were equally capable while some needed help identifying the controls on their cameras.

Yet, all were wide-eyed at five o’clock Friday afternoon as we settled in for Mike’s evening presentation. I’d bet that I wasn’t alone among the more experienced photographers at the boot camp, who felt the talk about f-stops, depth of field, various lenses, etc. a bit more basic that we needed. I know the thought crossed my mind that evening and again a couple times on Saturday. But, it was a mixed group and several questions from others attested to the rightness of Mike’s inclusion of this “basic” information in his presentation. After all, he did bill the session as a “boot camp.”

Now, I remember boot camp when I went in the service more years go than I care to admit. And while much of what we were taught was new, much was also quite familiar. Together, however, it gave us a good grounding for the challenges we’d face after boot camp. I think the content of Mike’s boot camp will do the same thing.

Peacock feathers

The headline of this post says that Mike’s boot camp surprised me. It did, because what I learned wasn’t what I expected to learn. I was expecting that Mike would share some unique tricks-of-the-trade, those magical techniques only the “pros” know. He didn’t, in the commonly expected meaning. In an important way, however, he did.

To someone who works hard at his or her photography, what Mike shared was much more valuable than a trick or two. He shared his passion and his approach to his art. As a macro photographer, Mike makes his living selling images for publication, trucking countless images to art shows for sale to the public, writing books, and conducting workshops.

At the boot camp, no question was turned away, no matter how basic, how relevant, or in some cases, how much he might have thought the question was too much about he makes his living with his camera. But while Mike quickly and easily answered each question he communicated several points so present, so obvious and so valuable they might have been accepted without a second thought by the eager ears in his audience.

You couldn’t come away from the boot camp without being impressed by Mike’s “keep it simple” approach. It’s a back-to-basics message. Picture a room, perhaps 30′ x 40′. Lighting was typical of a hotel meeting room, some florescent lights down the middle and some incandescent lighting on the sides. Lighting was surely adequate for a wedding reception (there was one going on outside our doors) or for a business conference. Most photographers, however, would immediately think the lighting was grossly inadequate for good photography.

Now put 40 photographers, 40 tripods, camera bags and what have you in this poorly lit room and tell me you expect interesting photography to be produced. If your name is not Mike Moats, I think you’d be telling me a fib. Or, you just completed Mike’s workshop and the images in your camera impress you . . . despite these conditions.

It is out of all this that the surprise surfaced for me. It’s something every competent photographer knows. Good images don’t result because of your lighting, your new lens, your state-of-the-art digital camera, but because of your passion and your love of the craft.

Of course Mike shared some important competencies (like controlling depth of field), some artistic realities (like understanding your composition) and some new”ish” technology (the Lensbaby). The most important thing he sent me home with, however, was the renewed recognition that every photographer has his or her own vision and perspective to help define the images we capture. If we follow that vision with less of our attention on the tools and gadgets and more concentration on our passion, we’ll bring home more photographs we can be justly proud of.

So, from one photographer to another . . . Mike, you’ve managed to fan an ember in me and I’m burning with passion for my photography again. Thanks.

One of my Linkedin group asked a question today that spawned this post.

He’s heading to Tuba City, AZ this summer and is concerned about shooting in the bright and hot sun. Well founded concerns based on my limited experience. It will be hot that time of year and I can virtually guaranteed that “bright” still applies.

Clinging to life in Sedona

I spent a week in Sedona a couple years ago and, time being short, tried to shoot during as much of the day as I could. I was able to find a couple locations that were somewhat protected from the bright contrast of sunny Arizona but most of my success came very early and late in the day. Of course there is no news there.

I managed to get some value out of the daytime hours by going close-up or macro (though I didn’t do much macro back then). This allowed me to focus on subjects that were in the shade or that I could shade with a portable diffuser.

Sedona wildflowers

If I were to do it again, which hopefully I will, I’ll use the midday more for scouting where I want to be that evening or the next morning…though it will be tough to not use the limited time to be shooting.

I recall that my polarizing filter and the split neutral density filters were absolutely required. Of course back then we didn’t know about HDR, which we now have available and can open up a lot of time for shooting in the high contrast midday period.

I’d recommend Photomatix software. There are others, even within Photoshop CS3 or CS4, but I’ve had great fortune with Photomatix.

Those readers who are members of The North American Nature Photographers Association’s (NANPA) and readers of its magazine, Currents, will find the spring edition exceptional – great articles from esoteric as well as technological perspectives. I particularly enjoyed the articles on Putting on a Photo Presentation and the one on Depth of Field. While neither was totally new information, each was unusually effective at giving me information I can, and will, use.

It's not a national swamp, but a marsh only ten minutes from the house yielded this image.

I also enjoyed the Swamps  & Serenity piece, an article about photographing in Atchafalaya Basin Swamp in Louisiana. It provided motivation to once again look to the marshlands in our area for subject matter for my cameras. Sure, they are not the Atchafalaya, but many of the same qualities will be present.

Unfortunately, if your are not a member of NANPA, you won’t be able to benefit from these article . . . one more reason to join one of the finest photography organizations available to us.