© Tim Pannell Photography

I’ve been looking around at some of the “photo blogs” that are out on the internet lately and there is one thing that has really surprised me.  Why do so many of the blogs use the exact same template with almost identical images to other “photo blogs?”  Heck…..even some of the verbage is word for word the same as other blogs.  The images almost always look like they were shot by the same person as well.

I’m disappointed that so many just go out and copy the work of someone that is basically already copying the work of Anne Geddes.  Not only is that plagiarism, but it is as far as one can get from true creativity.

© Tim Pannell Photography

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting inspiration from someone’s work or vision and using that as a starting point or jumping off point…….but to do the same shot and then call it your own…..that’s not what photography should be about.

My advice……try harder.  If you want to recreate someone else’s work as an assignment to learn a technique…..that’s great…..just don’t promote it as your own work.  Any self respecting professional photographer knows there are laws in place to protect against that and would never do this.

There is a big difference between owning a professional digital camera and being a professional photographer.  I’m a little taken aback by all of the misrepresentation going on of late. My niece is getting married in August and gave me a list of several “wedding” photographers’ websites to look at.

To my surprise….they were all just bloggers.  All of them did something else for a living and did photography because it was their “passion.”  Each of these blogs featured ” fully retouched or “edited” images” awash in posteriziation, clipped highlights and clipped shadows.  Many of the images were very beautiful.  Interesting crops, interesting use of available light (only available light) very limited scenarios because of their inability to do anything other than just point their camera and shoot.

This is a recipe for a wedding disaster.  If you’re looking for a wedding photographer….don’t hire a blogger……get a professional that knows what they’re doing….it’s worth the extra money.

They initially wanted me to shoot their wedding, but I declined because even though I’m a professional in the biz for over 25 years….I don’t shoot weddings.  It’s not what I’m good at and it wouldn’t be fair to them to misrepresent myself.

If you’re learning photography……admit it.  If you’re still struggling with Photoshop……admit it.  Don’t promote yourself as a professional baby, teenager, wedding photographer when you are consistently posterizing every one of your images that happens to have red in it.  It’s not honest.

That being said……we all start somewhere….just be yourself…..not Anne Geddes, not your next door neighbor, not me.

© Tim Pannell Photography

Learn your craft so that you can try new things and experiment.  It’s when you experiment that you come up with images that can look unique.  Unique is a lofty goal to aim at since seemingly almost anything worth doing has already been done, but I think you get the point.

I spent a couple of days last week shooting with an art director friend of mine from New York.  It was a blast to be working together again.  It’s kind of like this intricately intertwined photography dance we have going.  She knows me well and I know her well and consequently its a joy to  shoot together….she brings out my best.

We spent several hours on a neighbors porch.  She had so many wonderful knick knacks all over the place that made for wonderful props for my kids and families to use.

It felt a lot like play time for me as well as the models.  We wanted the images to have kind of dreamy whimsical quality to them.  We chose specific colors in the wardrobe and props to achieve that.

My personal opinion is…..it worked.

In any case…..don’t copy other people’s work or websites or text……it’s not ethical.

Sorry I got off on a rant there…..ooops…..I’ve just plagiarized Dennis Miller……ahhhh crap!

Just go out and play, have fun……..try something new and different………and most importantly…….be yourself!

As promised, here’s a little photoshop tutorial that will show you how to salvage an image by using a piece of another image.

The base image is the one I want to use, but I have a leaf covering the boy’s eye.  I found another image from the series where his eyes are free from any leaves.

All I have to do is isolate the area I want to use and drag it to my “base” image to hide the “offensive” leaf.

The tutorial is a bit simplified.  If I were doing this for the client I would spend more time massaging the final image.

This is at the very least a good place to start.  If you’re looking to get more in depth instruction you should consider registering for one of my upcoming Photo Mommies Workshops.

The tutorials for the workshop are more detail oriented.

Once you understand the principles behind this stuff you can play around with all kinds of options and variables.

In any case, have some fun with it……I hope it helps.

Ok, it’s just about officially winter, even here in Arizona. Take advantage of whatever leaves you have left and have some fun.

If you want to get the quintessential leaf toss photograph you need to be aware of a few things.

You need to make sure your people don’t look up too high into the air after tossing the leaves or you’ll see nothing but chins and nostrils.

The other big annoyance is that you’re gonna wind up with the vast majority of your pictures being ruined by random leaves covering up peoples’ faces.

You just have to make sure you shoot enough frames to get a really good one, or have enough Photoshop skills to strip a good “non leaf covered” face for the one that is blocked.

In fact, while I was writing this post I decided to do a video photoshop tutorial of how to do just that.  If everything goes well, I’ll post it on the blog tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you live in an area where the trees aren’t completely bare, good luck with the  leaf tossing or leaf fights or whatever else kind of “leaf activities” you decide capture with your camera.

For those of you who have been wanting to sign up for the next photo workshop, I’ll be announcing the February starting date pretty soon.