Just having a digital camera from Walmart doesn't mean a person is a photographer. Further, the lack of post production editing shown in some photos makes it even more evident that many people aren't as skilled in the profession as they could be with some training.

Now, I'm not an expert by any means and find myself humbled over and over again at my efforts to create great photos only to see my amateur abilities shown in the blurry images I capture or the lack of good technique in post editing I've been guilty of producing. In fact, after submitting some of my work to a local photo club for judging, it was amazing to hear the feedback of issues I seem to be missing in my technique or post-production editing. It's a moving target, unfortunately, where the beholder of any image is the ultimate judge.

My efforts to improve my craft sometimes yield satisfaction, but I yearn to produce images that make my jaw drop such as those found on photo.net. Many photographers on that site create simply amazing images from a spectrum of subject matter. I've learned that taking a good image with the camera is essential if editing the image for final viewing is going to yield any sense of quality.

Issues like depth of field, lighting (mostly lighting) and the rule of thirds are often the most critical elements necessary to have a chance at making your post editing look presentable. Some people who have no idea how to see those technical aspects while shooting are going to have a hard time editing those into their images in post. In fact, many great subject matters of an image are lost to poor lighting, framing, or simple focus issues.

One image I shot in Los Angeles in 2008 <shown here> was judged by a panel of jurors who have masters degrees in photography and their primary critiques were that the subject matter was good, but my focal point should have been on the front corner where the blue glass was instead of slightly in the middle. They also commented that I should have cropped the top and bottom so that only the glass layers showed in the photo to make it completely abstract. As a photographer, you have to hear this criticism and decide if you agree or not. Of course, when you take an image in post production and modify it (cropping, color balance, sharpness, contrast, etc.) you believe you finish knowing you've finalized the image to what you want it to be. That's where it is difficult to work through digital photography. Taking the image, you have a goal in mind with what you see. Then editing, you hope to achieve that result, although Adobe Lightroom (my favorite) has so many adjustments that you may find something that makes your image pop more than you expected. This glass shot did not have the color range it does now when I photographed it. It was basically green in color. However, in Lightroom, I adjusted the color saturation to allow more of the inherent colors to "pop" from the image and it brought out reds and blues and yellows that were actually in the glass, but needed to be brought out in editing. I did not add those colors, just pumped up the saturation. This is one example of how editing can turn a normal image into an enjoyable one to view.

So, my advice to anyone who enjoys taking photos... be sure to learn Lightroom and Photoshop so your images can become more unique. It truly does make a difference. However, don't rely solely on editing, as many photographers think they can edit composition or subject matter to make the shot interesting, and they have wonderful effects on a boring subject or poorly lit one. The cake is the camera and lens work... the icing is the post production editing.

After an opening reception of about 50-60 people, we went out for a bite to eat and unwind from the long weeks of preparation for the show. I can assure you that the planning and preparations for the artist(s) and the gallery owner are not to be envied. It was a lot of hard work and had a great deal of hurdles along the way. In the end, the show layout and display of the images was encouraging for my wife and I and our intern, Abbey Meyer.

Fine art photography is an interesting style of art in that, like most art, it is open for broad interpretation and doesn't always have a specific style or theme that makes it "fine art".

Our goal for shooting fine art has been to establish a key word or theme and go take as many shots around that as possible. I occasionally work the photos in Photoshop to make them unique and more "wall art" appealing. Even then, some people don't see the "artistic" element in them. What I try NOT to do is create images or subject matter that is redundant and available from mainstream sources like WalMart with pictures of flowers, landscapes, wildlife, or other commonly seen objects (barns, fences, architecture, etc.). The tradeoff is when people don't invest in your art because it IS so uncommon. However, the gamble is also that it IS so unusual that it may appeal to a collector.

Either way, this type of photography is such a new genre for us that we'll probably have to sojourn a few shows to find our niche.

This is where it gets tricky!

What makes what I shoot any different than what someone could purchase at Walmart? What makes what I shoot any different than a person could purchase at a hoity-toity studio and pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for seemingly trivial shots (again... my perception)? It's such a tough industry because of the mass marketing of digital cameras and every JOE or JANE deciding they are qualified photographers.

Perhaps the hobbyist in me is the part that appeals to the wider audience... and hence the reason I feel compelled to make it into a business. But then, the businessman in me tries to make the photography aspect into a profit center of my overall business... and the two worlds just don't seem to be easy to mesh!

Studio photography is an art! There, I've said it. Some photographers are using finger painting techniques (Kindergarten approach) and others are like Rembrandt or Michelangelo and produce amazing results using the same cameras, lenses, and lighting, and backdrops that most of us have.

Sports photography. As a photojournalist at times, my work is appreciated for capturing someone's favorite player doing something quite wonderful in a moment of the game. People laud this type of photography because they don't have the opportunity to be up close and without foreground interference. They appreciate it. However, when you're shooting little Joey in a local sports league, the game of photography (business) becomes quite a different story. Now you're competing with supermom and her deluxe digital Christmas-Gift camera while she documents every event with whipping out this point-and-shoot convenient gadget and shoots away. Then there's the other side of the competition. Walmart! Walgreens! or any other do-it-yourself prints service. Take your digital card into those places, and voila... cheap-and-convenient prints on the fly!

So what's a photographer supposed to do?

Find a niche and let that create your market... is what I say to myself.

So what's my niche? Probably the hobby-like shooting where expectations aren't based on what someone has already experienced... but rather what I can create as a new experience for them.

In the game of making money from a skill like photography, there's always a balance of appealing to the masses and living hand to mouth for the niche clients to contact you about their unique photo style they want you to shoot!

I'd love to hear any feedback on what your take of hobbyist versus job looks like!

I've never been to a pro boxing match or anything organized like this event. It was very well organized and I could sense the anticipation the whole night leading up to the first bout. As I readied myself for the action, I had to position my ladder around the cage perimeter so as to be able to get pics. This was a new method of action photography I'd not yet experienced. However, with my job, everything I do seems to be a new experience.

I really enjoyed the premise of the sport. Mixing Karate, Wrestling, and Boxing into one match was quite entertaining. In fact, it seemed much like watching a bar-fight inside a cage... minus the shards of bottle glass and broken stools. Frankly, if it did have the broken bottles and stools... now we're talking WWE smackdown. This event didn't have that fakery attached. It was genuinely guys trying to pound the living life out of each other until a ref steps in and announces a winner by stopping the action. Wow!

It was gruesome the first few fights when blood and open eyelid cuts highlighted the pics I shot. A solid black vinyl floor mat contrasted sharply with the neon glowing red blood splattered on it. Gruesome!

I wasn't mortified or even woozy from the sight of it all. I guess I'm used to it from my life of action movies... except this was real-life before my eyes.

What really got my attention was the two 250+ pounds each super heavyweight fighters that chose to go full speed into the side of the cage like a freight train. Their momentum of a takedown move caused them to slam hard into my padded support post section of the cage where my ladder was nestled tightly against the outside of the post. Like a thunder clap, they rocked the cage so hard the aftershock pushed my ladder straight out from beneath my feet (which were resting on the top two steps). There I was... left hand quickly clinging to the top pad of the cage wall... right hand clinching my camera tightly... both feet wrestling the top step of the falling ladder to grasp it tight enough to not let it finish its floor bound momentum.

At a moment like this (only seconds, but seemingly hours) your body reacts in self-preservation and does whatever it takes to save itself from harm. My left arm is hardly the strongest member of my bodily makeup. In fact, as a right handed guy, my left arm is usually an innocent tag-along which sways back and forth to keep my lumbering gait upright. Now, without warning, my left arm was called to action to save the entire body from toppling hard on a cement floor 10 feet below. He did his job! Good boy, left arm.

However, the feet had to recover the 50 degree angled ladder back to it's perpendicular stance. The crowd of nearly 1500 people all let out gasps and small shrieks of concern for my daredevil act of recovery. It was surreal. I managed to get the ladder back to an upright position... steady myself once again... throw my elbows over the top edge of the cage and stand upright with camera in hand and ready to fire the next series of shots. The crowd cheered!

I felt like the courtside basketball photographer getting plowed by Shaq. It wasn't my intention to bring attention to myself... but the cage fighting gods must have felt the room needed another moment of shock and awe to remember about that night.

I received multiple terms of endearment about my welfare from judges and event organizers and a few dozen snickers by acquaintances who witnessed the few seconds of heroism of self-rescue. But my pectoral muscles on the left side and my rib muscles (whatever those are) reminded me all week that I had gone through my own version of cage fighting.

Now, after the fact, I find it quite fascinating that my first ever attendance to a fight of that style involved such drama. The pictures turned out quite nice and I've had a few great moments of feedback from those who posed unwittingly for my lens.

Suffice it to say, the advice given to me by the videographer after the event was, "I should have told you to not have your ladder so close to the sides." Yeah, that may have been a good bit of advice to share.

Sure, as a photographer we're supposed to have all the answers on the best techniques in different lighting environments. However, I can tell you that my latest and greatest Canon gear doesn't even make it foolproof. I don't shoot on automatic settings for anything. It's all manual for me. Manual F-stop, manual white balance, manual ISO... the works. However, even then, I still mess up the overall shots a lot when it comes to lighting.

Taking the most recent shoot at the local ball diamond, we had an overcast morning to start, followed by partly cloudy sunrise light to the East, followed by overcast and partly cloudy skies late morning, followed by pure blue skies of hot sun, followed by partly cloudy again near the end of our 6 hour shoot. Let me tell you, dealing with a sudden cloud cover in the middle of an actual shutter release made it fun when you're on a schedule and shooting players of the same team... one after another... seconds apart.

I noticed during the cleaning up of the photos for making the prints that picture to picture varied in how light affected their face, shadows around their face, the brightness or dullness of their arm skin and even the brilliance or dullness of the green grass around them. Wow! This whole digital era of photography isn't as easy as it seems. Thank God for software to help fix those normal realities of life that we don't like to see in the keepsake photo.

We ended up using flash for a fill when normally I use a large bounce on individual I shoot outdoors. The flash worked awesome on most player shots, and not so great on others. The direct overhead sun (11am-1pm) made it a challenge as well. So, in an effort to be the ever learning student of my profession, I take that experience as one more lesson of what to expect when shooting in an environment less than favorable for controlled lighting... like a studio.

Studio lighting is a whole different ball game and also presents some challenges depending on the time available to set up and test the subject in different lighting. Usually, people's skin tones dictate how we deal with lighting and that can create a whole wide world of challenges as well. Thank God for digital technology. I can't fathom trying to do the photography we offer using film. But then again, I'm not the purist that some 'old school' photographers have proven to be.

When shooting basketball at Notre Dame, I am so close to the baseline that I have to keep both eyes open and actually let the lens view be my other eye as though I'm watching the game without a camera. I move my head with the action and only click the shutter when I see (anticipate) action worth capturing. It's still hard to do and I often fail more than succeed at getting a good shot. The difficult part (at times) is not getting caught up in the excitement of a play and then miss the great shot of the great play.

Timing is also key to capture moments. Knowing when to push the shutter is as key as positioning the lens. Sure, white balance, shutter speed, ISO, all play into the action shots, but I find that intuition for the sport is more of a factor. You basically have to know what could happen every play or possession.

Another critical aspect (sometimes) for me is to use manual focus on, let's say, the basketball rim. Focus on the rim manually, then wait for that thrill dunk to appear. Usually having two cameras helps me in those situations. I use auto-focus at a high shutter speed with rapid fire (5-6fps) and use the manual focus lens to capture a shot where little movement of the subject in depth of field will occur.

In all, I like shooting sports, but it is a commitment to your back, legs, arms, and neckline (think farmer tan) when shooting outside.

I think I'll go rub some aloe on my neck.

What I'm probably most excited about is the opportunity to start blogging about our work at Day 6. This is obviously the photography blog, and I hope to get the other two areas of the company up to date with help from our staff.

I'll probably be posting some of my more unique shots in the blog area and include them in our perpetual gallery area as well.

Gotta go for now, but I hope you like the new photography section!