Ken’s Shoot Notes Blog

Go Big! Digital displays at the URMC Discovery Ball

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Shoots, Skills, Photo, PhotoJava, Rochester NY, Events.

For the URMC Discovery Ball, we created several huge displays. This one was about 20 feet wide and was the scrim that then opened at the transition to the dinner hour. It is 16×9 format HD and it included a timelapse of a two hour sunset from the new Wilmot Cancer Center building.

Over about 10 minutes, you could see the sunset through the windows, while people came and went, cars drove by and the lights came on… it was a big hit and guests stood there just watching it. The display then included some of my ‘beauty views’ of the new building from the outside fading toward sunset.

Thanks to Ron Cronk for his help during the 3 hours we worked on this shoot!

This display of our work was 5′ tall prints (thanks to some great help from our local Kodak friends!)

The goal was really to bring the new building to the guests.

Thanks for the fun, creative projects Kim & everyone at URMC & the Cancer Center!

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Photo Slideshows: PulpMotion and BannerZest

Posted on April 24th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Apple, Skills, Photo, Teaching, Blogging, OSX, PhotoJava.

I use Boinx’s FotoMagico for my pro digital image shows. It has wonderfully smooth transitions and lots of features, but I just bumped into PulpMotion from Aquafadas software.

Aquafadas has a slick little Flash program that’s part of the current MacUpdate Bundle Deal (check that out too!) and I bumped into PulpMotion from that.

It uses the ‘theme’ idea that’s ruined many such products, but these guys are like Apple… their design sense rocks. And on top of that, some of the themes just seem to be simple transition and text settings.

I’ll demo it and let you know if it’s as cool as it looks. Check out their site for videos of the shows created with PulpMotion.

(BannerZest Example with a theme)

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RIT’s Creative Entrepreneur Talk

Posted on March 28th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Skills, Teaching, Rochester NY, Colleges, Currently Reading, Famous People.

I had such a great time at this RIT event… Had a yummy meal and the best part was an interesting talk from Lauren Dixon of Dixon Schwabl here in Rochester. I know it must be a fun place to work, since all of the DS people I’ve interacted with on clients’ shoots have been terrific. Even bringing their kids on shoots. After telling Colin a few things about Lauren’s company, he said it sounded like the kind of place he’d like to work… so loose and creative.

Our panel had a really great range of experience and it always reminds me of how little my business is compared to everyone else! But I hope some of my experience after 21 years still helps the folks starting out.

Here’s a recap of what I said (…and sorry to keep butting in Elizabeth

• Read much and broadly. You can teach yourself anything just by grabbing a book, and amazing creative things happen when you learn about different areas. Read Wired.
• Learn good business. Simple stuff like being on time, billing accurately, dressing for the event. Read business guru’s. For me it was Tom Peters. Today Getting Things Done or the Long Tail
• Stay Findable… good things happen when people can find you a year or two later. Work on your Google rank, ‘K
• Be a Triple Threat: Wriging Skills, Web Skills, Graphic Design Skills as well as Photography. You never know what you’ll be called on to do or have an informed opinion on. Once when money was tight, I did really well writing on digital photography for a tech journal. I design my own web site. Don’t blow off chances to improve these skills.
• My friend Ron Cronk reminded me of this… there’s a lot more than just shooting skills. I said there was a ’strata’ you move through… Everyone should have the bedrock of good technical skills, or else don’t even show up. BUT people ignore the rest of the layers… Being ‘nice’ and having people skills is key: Do you make clients lives more or less stressful?? Equal to that is being competent in business skills (as noted above) and finally those three things should allow you to grow over time to the top of the heap and really develop refined, masterful skills that really set you apart.
• You must jump in at some point. It’s great to ease into the freelance game while working a job, but at some point you have to go full time. Until you do, people just don’t see you the same, and you miss many business chances for clients to totally rely on your availability

Some things I didn’t get to say:

• Find a good niche you love. Doing a bit of everything can give you experience, but go deep in one area you can be known for.
• Be passionate. You’ll still pull all-nighters if you’re self-employed. You’ve got to love it.
• Work for great, growing clients and clients you can learn and grow with. I’m really bummed I didn’t touch on this one! I’ve been blessed with clients that were on the grow and so the amount of work just kept growing too. You can love and serve the clients that are flat, but if you notice a client is really rockin’, jump on board and give them everything you can.
• Raving Fans . Read it or download the audiobook. iTunes doesn’t seem to have it.
• Learn on the job. When you know you’ve got the basics a client needs covered, push yourself to do more and learn right then, not at some workshop. I’ve always had an area I wanted to improve (Lighting, portraits, web, etc) and so I’d study where I was weak in books and on shoots get the ’safe’ shot the client asked for, but also work on the new skill. Warning: Don’t suck while you do this…you still have to produce 110% of what the client wants and not waste anyone’s time.

Michael (yes, this was shot right during the panel!)

Elizabeth & Rich (sorry for the bad moment, Rich…)

So thanks t o RIT for inviting me and to Rich Getsloff, Elizabeth Lyons and Michael Lomb my co-panelists for their good ideas I’ll now steal

Me waxing pundit-y

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Colin’s Photos

Posted on March 26th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Apple, Personal, Skills, Equipment, Photo, Teaching, PhotoJava, Family, Famous People.

Photo credit: Colin A. Huth

I love how kids don’t mind ‘breaking the rules’ and come up with some really cool shots. The iPhone also helps, because Colin can always grab it when we’re running around and take shots. I went to a talk on Digital Photography Future with Alexis Gerard at the George Eastman House, and the access to cell phone cameras is one topic of how digital photography is changing.

I had even mentioned this idea in an article on the future of photography for Element K Journals a few years back … when you always have a camera with you, and it doesn’t cost anything to take images, we take so many interesting images… and think differently about taking pictures.

Doesn’t Colin has a good eye and a fun sense for photos. He’s 12 and we homeschool the kids.

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Mac Leopard Font Trick

Posted on March 17th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Skills, OSX.

I just accidentally grabbed the wrong part of a font palette and found this out.

If you pull the little dimple at the top of the palette (which usually means something like a ‘drawer’ is hidden there), it exposes a font preview, so you can see how the font renders, not just it’s name.

The screenshot above is after it’s pulled and you see the preview. The ‘dimple’ is above the ’shadow text’ T.

To get the font palette in most applications, you go to something like an ‘edit’ or ‘format’ menu, and see if ’show fonts’ is an option. Then you get this floating palette. I play with fonts so much, I have it open most of the time in Keynote, Pages, etc.

Enjoy being a font geek!

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Hey, I’m a “Creative Entrepreneur!”

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by HuthPhoto.
Categories: Personal, Photo, Teaching, Rochester NY, Colleges.

I do a fair amount of talking to groups, but it’s usually about photo topics, digital photography, Photoshop, etc… But this time it’s different.

RIT has asked me to speak at a conference on the business side of my life, which is cool. I’ve often said that I got my early start by being a good businessman first, then a photographer. All photographers that are full-time should have a pretty good feature-set, but I felt that they often blow it on business (personal skills, billing mistakes, showing up late, not fitting in with a high-end group, etc).

One way I’ve summed up my early success is that I was the guy that didn’t screw up. I wasn’t the best, most creative shooter… just the last guy standing. (this stems from a story of working for the AP early on)

RIT asked me if I wanted to be involved in the ‘Networking’ topic, but I turned that down, as I’m an abysmal failure at networking. I hate all of that and often don’t have cards with me. I have been blessed that my business grew because of very kind clients spreading the word, but it was through no plan or system of mine.

Thanks to Deb and Kara for thinking I have something to share. It’s really nice to give back to people starting out. My topic will be on Striking Out on Your Own – Prospering As a Creative Entrepreneur

So maybe I’ll see you there!

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