Shutterbug Growing Pains
Photo Finish
When the Camera Buying Process takes over mind and reason, it’s best to let your inner photographer use its best judgement. Sometimes the ability to become a photographer for commercial purposes is only one or two steps away. Better equipment, or finding the right equipment for you, makes the best pictures come forth.
This is what happened when I was bumping along with my Hewlett Packard Six mega pixel digital camera. Learning to transfer the shots from the camera took some doing. The physical transfer seemed to work, but my computer had established preferences about where to put photo files and how to load images and the default programs for these functions.
My computer had a better idea of what I was trying to do, but kept finding obtruse pathways to do it. I had not turned my attention to tweaking my computer strictly for these jobs before. I found I was balancing time from other projects to pursue a learning curve.
I felt like it was taking me too many clicks and manipulations to get each photo ready to go and in the destination Iwanted it to be in. This lack of efficiency was eating up my time. The options available in the photo software applications were endless pull down menus, but I didn’t have time to learn them.
I was not satsfied from my own point of view. This was when I began to realize just the photgraphy is not the only requirement to being a successful stock photographer. Patience in manifesting the finished images in a transferable size, with clarity and purposeful cropping and captions, took time. This was the shutterbug’s learning curve.
I had paid assignments to capture stock images, geographical sites, and attractions within a certain city. I set out day after day, armed with cables, batteries, snacks, and visor and sunglasses. Boy did I have a lot to learn. I got a subnurn, took about four times longer than I thought, and I couldn’t wait to get out again the next day.
Certainly Hewlett Packard makes a good camera, and I was astonished at the definition of the shots and crispness of the video I did capture. But I wanted more. For the types of shots I now suspected I was capable of, the current development process had to many snags. Moving images from camera to software to desktop to web setup pathway was not working efficiently enough. I could do better.
With the time I was now spending strictly on photography, I wanted a better instrument. I now realized that the time demanded to package and manipulate the image for delivery to the customer or stock photo website had to be factored into the “work” process.
