Olaf Willoughby – Alumni Success Story

Alumni, Books, Workshop  Comment
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Olaf Willoughby is one of my workshop alumns with an amazing success story. It’s a testament to how one man with focus can succeed personally and make a significant contribution in a short time.

“It all started with the mesmerising impact of a photographic expedition with Michael Reichmann and John Paul Caponigro. Antarctica was even more dramatic than I had expected. Glowing pink light at sunset. The vivid blue depths of the ice. Drifting sculpted icebergs. It was almost like a fairytale.
But the reality is different. Antarctica is under threat. Apart from the impact of climate change; the accords on land exploitation, whaling and tourism are all on a course of seemingly irreversible change for the worse.
This contrast between splendour and sadness led me beyond a photographic portfolio to produce a 48 page colour book, a work of environmental advocacy. “Antarctica, A Sense of Place”. The images and text contrast the natural beauty with the dark detail of the dangers facing Antarctica.
I produced the book within 6 months of the trip but I was still only halfway. John Cage said he didn’t consider his music complete until someone had heard it and similarly I needed marketing to create awareness and demand.
The World Wildlife Fund endorsed both the book and the images, using them in its web and print marketing activity. They also distributed over 5000 copies of the ebook on CD to help raise money for environmental causes. I have also blogged for the International Polar Year and their web site has featured the images. Additionally an article on the trip appeared in the UK’s most popular photographic magazine, Amateur Photographer, who also gave the book a very favourable review. A selection of images were exhibited at the ‘White Worlds’ exhibition at Nature In Art in the UK, Summer 2008. Prints have also been sold to support corporate environmental marketing programmes.
Through the WWF I have managed to create a good level of awareness, far higher than I might have managed on my own. I am going again in Jan 09 with John Paul and am currently planning the second edition.
JP’s workshops bring together a wonderful collection of like minded artists, rich with different talents. There are many benefits but, for me, the one outstanding lesson has been the expansion of the way I ‘see’ images, both provoking me to push harder and allowing me greater freedom to express my vision.”
Olaf Willoughby is a photographer, writer and researcher who lives with his wife Monique in London, UK. Creator: the WIT test of individualists and team players used in market research. Author: photography & travel books and articles. Values: the need to connect, environmental advocacy. Interests: the rhythms of data, images and words fuse into a long term fascination with creativity and pattern detection.
Check out a recent feature on Ag magazine here.
Find Olaf’s book here.
Learn more at olafwilloughby.com.
Stay tuned for stories from our upcoming January 2009 voyage to Antarctica.
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Enjoy my Antarctica galleries, book, and statements.
Learn more about my workshops here.
Early registrants get discounts at home.
Members get discounts abroad.

Ed Greenburg – On Copyright

Business, Video  Comment
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Ed Greenberg intellectual property lawyer speaks on Copyright online. Ed has had top notch high profile experience in this area – a lifetime of it! Ed’s been making appearances at Photoshop World with Jack Reznicki and helping clear up easily clouded issues for many creatives both amateur and professional. I learn something new every time I talk with him.

Insert Contact and Copyright Information in Metadata

Business  Comment
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Protect your rights and get greater recognition for your work at the same time. Insert your copyright and contact information in every one of your files and their derivatives. It’s easy to do. Make it a habit.
You can program your camera to insert your name and contact information automatically.
Check out my PDF on how to do this with Canon cameras here.
You can also batch insert metadata to any file with Adobe products like Lightroom and Bridge.

Register Your Copyright

Business  Comment
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One of the things I do at the beginning of each year is register my copyright for my images.
Registering your copyright is easy.
You can even do it online now.
Find out all you need to know here.
You don’t have to pay a registration fee for each image. You can register them in groups. I register my work in groups annually – i.e. new work 2008. If you’ve never registered before, you can register all your images for one fee – work to date.
If your work is published (or made public) consider registering more frequently. How frequently depends on you and the kind of work you do. Some photographers register their copyright when they deliver a job – every job.
You don’t have to register copyright to have ownership of your rights, they’re yours automatically. Registering your copyright is useful if your rights are infringed – in negotiations before going to court offenders are much more likely to settle out of court and if you go to court you’ll be able to recover your legal expenses as part of a suit.
Seth Resnik offers fantastic resources online to help you cut to the chase with this process and get it done exceptionally well in minimal time. Get them here.

Scanning Black & White Originals

Technique - B&W, Technique - Exposure  Comment
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Here’s a simple formula for scanning black and white originals (film or prints). Scan in Grayscale (there’s no benefit to scanning in RGB), in 16 bit, and at the native resolution of a scanner (upsample in Photoshop only if needed, not during scanning). Make sure sharpening is turned off. Test a scanner’s lookup tables for negatives; if they clip shadow or highlight detail scan negatives as transparencies and invert in Photoshop.
Get my free download here.
Find out more about black and white in my DVD Black & White Mastery.
Find out more about black and white in my Workshop Black & White Mastery.
Special discounts are available until January.

Leaves of Grass – Simulating Infrared

Software - Photoshop  Comment
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Looking for an infrared effect? Two options; capture in infrared or post-process to simulate infrared. Either way, the results can be compelling.
Here’s an excerpt from a statement I wrote on infrared techniques sometime ago.
“It looks like another world, yet it’s not. By opening a window into a spectrum we can’t see with the naked eye, infrared photography shows us our world in an extraordinary light … The effects are often unpredictable and almost always surprising. Perhaps, that is why this effect is so compelling.”
Read the rest of my artist’s statement here.
Read other artist’s statements here.
Find out more about black and white in my DVD Black & White Mastery.
Find out more about black and white in my Workshop Black & White Mastery.
Special discounts are available until January.

Dangerous Passage – Distilled in Black & White

Images - Statements  Comment
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Some images are better in black and white. This is one.
“Dangerous Passage was a compelling image. But something wasn’t working. The thorns were red. The stalks were green. The water was blue. They were not subtle. The color was garish. In many ways, the color was too literal. The drama of the composition was competing with the drama of color. The two were at odds. Their moods were incompatible. One was harsh and edgy. The other was bright and cheery. Color was the problem. So I removed it … The message was clarified. The image carried a much greater weight. Less became more. The image was somber in black and white. That much suited the mood. But it was ashen, cold, and remote. I missed the emotional power of color. So I put it back. I converted the image back to a color mode and introduced new color into the image.”
Read the rest of my artist’s statement here.
Read other artist’s statements here.
Find out more about black and white in my DVD Black & White Mastery.
Find out more about black and white in my Workshop Black & White Mastery.
Special discounts are available until January.