Digital Photo

Archive for May, 2009

Photographs of buildings, inanimate objects – even people, all too often have a flat, dull, ‘staged’ feeling to them. However, capturing someone or something reacting to an external action offers far more dramatic possibilities e.g. commuters in a hailstorm, a football player being tackled, flags in the wind etc. Imagine how much weaker the above images would be if the element of reaction to something was taken away.

Challenge stereotypes. It’s great to have some thematic ideas before you start shooting so you know – while allowing for serendipitous ‘magic’ of course – what you are after. Playing around with stereotypes and subverting them can be pretty cool. Some basic examples might be an excessively madeup blond ‘bimbo’ on a train reading The Wall Street Journal, a priest reading The Joy of Sex or a rich and successful celebrity Formula One driver using a bicycle or terrible old wreck of a car to get around etc.

The overwhelming need to take and use digital photography has made it easy for non existent photographers to fleece unsuspecting customers. Many of them will offer prices that are too good to refuse while others may promise even better deals. Some customers only realize what digital photos and scams they just signed after making the purchase.

Some of the digital photo providers give away some information that would easily give them away as a scam. For instance a company may have its permanent address listed in Queensland yet its website is hosted and operated in America. Furthermore, the inability of such digital photo dealers to specify the currency in which their charges are being deducted could raise eyebrows.

However the presence of scams should not scare away prospective customers from printing their digital photos online. You can research the digital photo companies through word of mouth and online reviews.