Before we start I'm going to put the question timings in the description
below the video. I'm Karl Taylor and this is our top 10 most common photography questions.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Now the reason
we're here is because I've just been out with been learning to fly this DJI
Hasselblad drone and we actually got some really cool shots here at sunrise
but we thought we'd take the opportunity to do these top 10 questions while we're
here. So let's kick it off. Question 1 - Can I use branded items in my portfolio?
The answer to that is yes but I would be careful and I say be careful because I
think most big brands won't mind you using their products in your portfolio
or on your website as long as you don't show them in a derogatory fashion so if
your work is to a good standard and you have the ability to show their items
looking really nice then I can't see they're really going to have issue with
it and a lot of top photographers do this, myself included we take pictures of
brands speculatively or brands that we haven't worked for we create amazing
images and then we basically publish those on our websites I've never got in
trouble for it and neither of any of my colleagues. Question 2: What's the
difference between the modeling lamp and the flash in a studio light? Now this
is something that confuses a lot of people that are new to photography when
you look at a studio light or you see a studio lighting setup you see all of
this continuous light shining in there you see light coming out of there and
then you see this burst to flash when the image is actually taken now people
are wondering well where did that flash come from well the answer is the flash
comes from the same place as where the continuous light is coming from in a
studio light you have what's called a modeling light sticking out and then
around it you have a flash tube so the modeling light is just there to allow
you to see what you're doing to see the image to see where the shadows are going
to see the shape of the light and then the flash fires when you actually take
the picture and that's the one that records the image so don't need to
confuse the two they're both coming from the same place.
Question 3: I want to set up a studio, what studio lights and
basic modifiers should I get? Well I'm gonna park that one for now because
we're doing another video on my top 10 accessories and a few
tips on studio photography so we'll include that in that video.
Question 4: How do i price my work? Well this one is always a little bit tricky because
people are unsure what to charge or how to work it out. Now in commercial photography,
we work on something called a day rate now your day rate is basically what you
charge for your eight-hour day and we also half that as well so we can charge
a minimum would be our half-day rate so most commercial photographers wouldn't
work for less than a half a day because the time it takes to set up the studio
get all the lights prepared and everything else. So base it on a day rate,
you need to work out what you're gonna charge for your day rate how much should
that be well commercial photographers day rates can range from anything from
maybe $500 to $1,000 right up to sort of $5,000 or more for some top
photographers maybe fashion photographers etc for their single day
so you have to work out where you sit in the market how good is your work how
good is your portfolio and what are your competitors charging that or as good as
you or at about the same standard.Once you know your day rate obviously your
work for a two day project is two days day rate charge
post-production rates though a charge usually at about 50 or 60 percent of
your day rate and prep and organization and organizing the shooting in
advance of the actual shoot is usually charged at about 50% of your day rate as
well so you've got your sort of pre-shoot rates and then your
post-production rates and then you've got your actual creative fee day rate
in there as well. Question 5: I'm looking to buy a new lens
which one would you recommend for landscape, portrait or product
photography? Okay let's deal with product photography first my most
commonly used lenses in product photography on my 80mm and my
100mm. Those are both fixed lenses, prime lenses and that's on a
medium format camera. Now if that was on 35 mm full
frame that would be about 60mm and about 80mm
on a 35mm full-frame. Now those lenses people often ask me ... Well why don't you
use the the macro lens? And the reason is that the macro lens is a 120mm macro
and I find that focal length a little bit long for the type of product work I
do I want to be a little bit closer to my product I want to feel a little bit
more intimate with the products so that's why I go for the 80 or the 100
mil fix lens. For portraiture I use the 100mm fix
lens the same lens that I use actually for a lot of product photography that's
an F 2.2 lens that would be equivalent to about an 85mm 1.2 or 1.4
lens in the 35mm format and that's a great lens for portraiture but you can
use any lens from about 80mm up to about 135mm for portraiture but
remember the longer you go in focal length you might make people look a
little bit too chunky looking. For landscape work, my favourite lens in the
35mm format is the 16 - 35 zoom that gives me the most versatility.
Question 6: What camera should I buy for beginner or for advanced or professional level?
This is a difficult one to answer because technology is changing all the time
we've seen cameras shift from film cameras medium format film into full
frame 35 mil digital crop sensor cameras we've got full frame sorry we've got
medium format digital and now where there's this whole advancement into
mirrorless cameras as well there's actually no difference between
mirrorless cameras and normal DSLRs in the full-frame 35 mil format they'll
both take exactly the same picture just one's got an electronic viewfinder and
no mirror the other one's got a mirror and you can see the image so don't worry
about that there's no quality difference between those two cameras.
My personal choice would always be to go for a full-frame 35 mil if you can
obviously some of the smaller sensors give you a more compact camera and
they're cheaper to buy and if you're doing sort of street photography that
may work well but if you're looking for shallower depth of field and more
versatility with the lenses than a full-frame 35 mil camera is probably the
format to opt for if you're not going for a medium format camera. I would
actually think about keeping your money and spending more of your money on your
lenses better optical quality equals better pictures in my opinion and less
money spent on gizmos on a camera that you're never gonna use think about
things like if the cameras got 15 frames per second or it's got about five
billion focus points are you really ever going to use those I usually focus my
camera in manual so some of these features that you'll pay for extra on a
camera body you may never use and you may have been better keeping your money
for lenses instead. Question 7: What is the best monitor to use? Do you calibrate
your monitor and how often? Well I use an EIZO monitor and I've also
got an ASUS monitor as well EIZO is the top brand of calibrated monitor that
they are quite expensive, I've got a 4k colour edge 31 inch monitor I
think it's about four or five thousand dollars so it's an expensive tool but
what that allows me to do is it allows me to see my work super super clearly in
super quality correct colors and then I feel confident when I'm handing that
work over to the client for a big ad campaign I feel confident that those
images have been delivered at the correct exposure the correct color
balance the monitor self calibrates about every 200 hours now less expensive
than the ISO are the maybe be NEC range the Asus range some of the Philips
monitors have entry-level calibrated monitors and then there's other brands
like Ben Q which are not familiar with but I believe you can calibrate so again
unfortunately it's one of the things you know you get what you pay for and you're
just gonna have to purchase the best that you can afford.
Question 8: I want to work as a photographer's assistant how do I do
this and what skills will I need? Well working as an assistant is really a
great way to gain experience and learn about photography, I've worked as an
assistant some of the top photographers that I know of all worked as an
assistant at some point. The best opportunity for you to get work as an
assistant to a good photographer is to make sure you've got some
extra skills in your repertoire because that will make you more employable an
assistant's job is basically to move lights around carry stuff, position
things, do what the photographer says while you while he's looking through
camera and follow his directions of what he needs. Now listen, pretty much anyone
can do that if they've got a bit of common sense about them but if you're
able to go into a studio and say look I've got assisting experience I know how
to change modifiers I know what tool the modifiers are I understand about f-stops
10th of an f-stop color balance and all that sort of stuff but if you're able to
say in addition to that I'm also really good as a digital artist or I can do
really good Photoshop work or I can help you with video editing clips or any
other skill that you can basically sell yourself a little bit further that will
be useful to that photographer in their business so upskill yourself you're
going to increases your chances of employability. Question 9: How
do you market yourself and how do you market yourself when you use started out
in photography? Well things have changed a lot in the industry since I
started out I started out back in the days of film before even the internet
was a viable option now we've got Instagram social media websites and all
those things now they're all great platforms to show off your work but do
they really connect with your audience because basically someone's got to find
their way to your platform and to your social media space to know anything
about you and that's more difficult. Back in the day we used to send out printed
post cards, printed portfolios, printed brochures and we'd send those to art
directors all around the city and basically try to make appointments to
get and see them and you try to develop those personal relationships and the
very the very process of actually delivering something tactile like a
printed image or a bound portfolio makes people pay more attention. Back in the
day I used to have six really large leather bound or acrylic bound
portfolios and I'd have those couriered out to different art directors and then
a week later I'd have the courier collect those and then take them to
someone else so it was a little bit of an expensive marketing campaign but it
really made an impact now obviously your work
needs to be a really high standard don't forget the very fact that there's no
point marketing yourself if your work isn't really up there compared to your
competitors obviously the Internet and the other areas you can market yourself
on and in social media first sorry social photography like weddings
portraits that sort of stuff then social media and using your existing customers
to promote you can be a great way as well. Question 10: Where do you get your
ideas from? This is the last question actually a lot
of people look at some of my images and they think wow that's amazing where did
you come up with that idea well the truth of it is actually it's a lot of
the ideas I don't come up with at all some of the images that we work on for
advertising campaigns and clients and companies those come from the art
director or their marketing team and they basically give us a brief and mood
boards and ideas and sketches and they say this is what we want to try and
achieve and my job is just to execute it and make it look real and make it look
believable so a lot of those images the ideas are never the photographer's most
commercial advertising photographers are working and executing someone else's
ideas however fortunately with my education business at Karl Taylor
education comm we have lots of opportunities to create our own ideas so
I create images create concepts and create mood boards myself to execute
those ideas when I do that I do something called pre visualization and
that's where I sketch the image out and design the image and the very process of
sketching the image down and drawing it helps you develop those ideas further
you build mood boards and you build things up and I basically follow the
same process that we follow as if I was shooting for a client but I just go
through the procedure of doing the pre-visualization part myself
those were our top 10 most common photography questions as I said we're
gonna have another video with my top 10 accessories and some tips on studio
photography as well I'm Karl Taylor thanks for watching. This video is
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