Tom helping out Paul, one of the neophyte photos.

A few things Tom mentioned right away in the eight person class was being prepared to shoot the “peak moment” and how to find the perfect lighting. While many of the comments he made for the group initially I’d already been practicing, it’s always refreshing to hear the technical aspects of photography in a new way. For example, he uses F8 a lot for photojournalism work and keeps the shutter around 500. I’ve always shot nearer F2.8 (and sometimes Tom does, too). Also, the shutter speed should only be one number lower than the focal length. Tom pointed out (and I completely agree) that we all break these rules often. Even my friends and colleagues who shoot often sometimes don’t even understand the Rule of Thirds. With my artist’s eye, this comes natural to me and I choose to break it at times, too.

Tom showed me how to use my light meter so I can shoot without removing my eye from the eye piece. He showed me how to view my histogram, and we discussed ISO and telezooms. All great information; take his class and follow him on twitter.

There were boards on all the basement windows and a fence around one side of the building. The other side had what amounted to two main doors. One was wide open. I was curious. I headed inside. There were three floors with what was once patient bedrooms along each side of corridor. It was pretty wild looking, kinda empty, and a little scary. I kept hearing noises outside.

The rooms were mostly empty but occasionally I found a sink, radiator, or bed left behind. It was pretty eerie.

This was once Mayview State Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1893, and I later discovered that my grandfather had spent several years employed here. The corridors were dark and quiet, but it was raining outside and I could swear I heard footsteps from time to time. This kinda freaked me out so I headed to the third floor. I figured if someone was coming I’d have more notice if I was upstairs. After shooting on the third floor, I walked slowly through the second floor before looking out the window towards the car; there were flashing police lights. I muttered something under my breath, kept making photos as I slowly made my way outside.

I heard rustling through the bushes and called out the security guard coming through the under brush miserably. The first thing he told me was to “dump the film”. I just cocked my head and wondered how I should answer that. I almost wish I still carried film so I could unravel one just to make him less cranky. Behind him a police officer emerged from the under brush with “why the hell are you down here in all this crap?” I told him I was a photographer. He asked for me ID, frisked me, and escorted me towards my car.

As we approached it, the friggin’ “birder” was there with the guards. I turned to the cop and told him that I’d talked to that woman a half an hour earlier and she knew exactly what I was doing. He said she was the one to call the police. Now, why would you be shooting in an area, finishing up, chat with another photog, and then call the police on him. The cop said she told him I looked suspicious. Suspicious how, I wondered? Ugh.

I waited by my car while he talked to the guards and the lady kept eyeballing me. I was to say something to her but I still didn’t know the outcome. Eventually he came over and said he was letting me go and to “have a nice vacation but spend it elsewhere.” He also said they were forcing me to delete the photos; he said it with a roll of the eyes and a shrug of his shoulders. I quickly did so so I could get the hell out of there, and then headed home.

After changing out of my rain drenched clothes, I ran the data recovery program on the disks to retrieve the photos, which are here. I feel ok with saying that and posting the photos because 1) the land was not posted, 2) I did not touch anything (including any portal to enter), 3) because I cooperated full with the officer be deleting every photo I made there, and 4) because the hospital was purchased just last week to be razed (supposedly) for a Walmart. It turned out to be part of my history and it’s a huge part of the history of Western Pennsylvania that will soon be gone forever.

As the idea of “tagging” files, images, folders, etc… caught on over the last few years, I’ve embraced it for so many reasons. Instead of sticking a file into a folder, that file could not represent so much more. For students, this could be “paper”, “draft1″, “Sci 302″, “subject”, “term written”, “year”, and so on. The concept of tagging allows the user more freedom with how he or she categorizes and organizes electronic work. While this still has far to go in tagging files inside the OS, the cloud is much more favorable to tagging. While social bookmarking, I will tag various website relatively liberally, but my photos are a different story.

I use Flickr to organize my photography and originally my audience was very limited. I remember one day two years ago I went into my Flickr tag cloud and was mortified by how many there were. I tried to merge tags, organize them, and drop some that didn’t seem pertinent. Looking back I was limiting myself.

But things change. I’ve been shooting more for other people: clients, yearbook; conferences; @dailyshoot; and picture of the day. My Flickr followers has exploded over the last year, too. Recently I wanted to add some photos to a presentation I was creating and couldn’t find this photo of a student I wanted. I knew the shot and knew it was on my Flickr. The boy was in my classroom, sitting at a desk, texting. He had red hair. I searched for “mobile”, “cell”, “classroom”, etc… and did not find the photo. Around the same time I was searching for dance shots I’d taken and couldn’t find them.

My tagging philosophy has now changed. Flickr lets you tag any photo with a maximum of 200 tags and I always wondered who would need so many. Well, I don’t use 200 but I sure use more than I use to. Now I tag photos in several ways. I begin with simple tags that include “Month Year”, then “Year” and then “Month”. Those are always standard for me now. If I can remember the month I shot something, I can flip back to everything from that month quickly. I then tag the event: e.g., “First Friday” or “Boys Varsity Volleyball”. Then I get more specific. For the volleyball example I just mentioned, I’d also include tags for “boys” “varsity volleyball” and “volleyball”. I’d tag those with both teams’ names (if I know them). If I shot it for yearbook, I’d tag it as such so the photo editor can go straight to a tag made just for that event. I am also beginning to tag minor things. When was the last time you needed a shot of a woman wearing a bandana? Today I edited a photo that matched that description and included tags to show that. Also, if the majority of the photo is a certain color scheme (like blues), I also tag it with the color name.

I cannot guarantee that in six months or a year, I will remember how my brain thought that single day when I tagged that shot. But I can guarantee that if I liberally tag my photos, one of the tags I will use to try to find that shot will pull it up from my Flickr.

hotography is art (sure there’s a science to it, but it’s truly art.) Photogs like Jim Marshall or Annie Leibovitz have certain styles that some people adore and others abhor. In the 20s & 30s people didn’t understand Picasso and in the 60s people didn’t understand why Warhol would want to paint soup cans. Art is made for the artist. Unless you have a client asking for a specific shot, the photographer makes the image that he or she sees through their artistic eye. We make images because we have to, not because it’s a chore or a punishment. We create art and release it into the world like a child leaving home for the first time. We don’t make excuses for our art or worry what people will think. Once the photograph is unleashed to the world it can take on a life of its own; some people will love it and some people will hate it. Some people will criticize it while others will praise it.

As photographers we need to have confidence in our work. We need to have faith in our art and send it out into the world. We all have those images that we feel are just average and then someone saw it and loved it. We wondered why. It’s because different people interpret art differently. We have those images we adore and our partners just shrug when we show them, the Flickr groups never make a single comment, and the shot is buried for only us to love. Then there are other shots we aren’t even sure we should submit to a contest, post online, or share with anyone because we just don’t know, but you know what? Sometimes that’s the shot that’ll make all the difference.

Several years ago a writer developed a storyline that he loved. He thought the world would love it. He worked on his art for years, but no one wanted it. He became disparaged. He married, loved his wife and sired a daughter. They had little money as he worked on his art. Finally a publisher sent it back and asked for revisions. He got irate and threw his manuscript in the trash. He was done. The world didn’t want his art. He had lost his confidence, but his wife hadn’t lost her faith in him. She pulled that manuscript from the trash and had him make the changes. He then sent his art back into the work. It was accepted. At first by the publisher and later by millions of people worldwide. That first book was Carrie. The man was Steven King.

If we hide our art away, our photography, no one will have the chance to love it. Had Jim Marshall not picked up a camera in high school, would Woodstock have become so iconic? Had Gertrude Stein not purchased odd looking art from a homeless street artist, would the world have ever seen Guernica?

The Music Matters Project was begun because the photographers and musicians involved love art. We love the idea of capturing an emotion, an image, a moment. We love art, music, photography just like you.

You have that photograph on your computer, usb drive or storage device that you think isn’t good enough, that we wouldn’t want. You’re second guessing yourself. You will never know what others think of your photographs without letting others see them. Release your art into the world. Be happy with your work, and be ok with others seeing it.

Flickr was originally, for me, a place to share pics of my kids with the family in other parts of the country. Then it became a place where I posted my 365 as I began a yearlong challenge of taking daily self-portraits. As I did this Flickr became so much more social for me. Then I started doing “photoshoots”, which for me has been either 1) concerts or 2) portrait shoots (family, holidays, senior shoots, etc…).

Around that time I was looking for cloud storage. I talked to another photographer, Adam Nollmeyer, who asked “well, don’t you use Flickr”. I said I did. He reminded me that I am already archiving everything I shoot. I realized I was and he was right. He also showed me apps that would batch download straight from my Flickr. I post pretty much everything I shoot (that I edit and keep) to Flickr, but frankly, I need a portfolio site, but I have a few needs.

1) No Flash. We’re really going the way of HTML5 and I want iPad users to see my stuff, so none of these froo froo flash sites for me.

2) I want to be able to sell directly from the site. I also hate ordering prints and shipping so I’d prefer a site from a company that takes a small percentage and prints & s&h for me.

So this is where I am now. I’m ready to move forward with that, but not sure where to begin.

1. Don’t be late. I didn’t anticipate how far away I was when I left, and they were early so I was more nervous. Things were ok probably because I knew the people. If I hadn’t, I am sure the impression of being late would’ve been worse.

2. Know your location. A good photographer would be there early, know his landscape, have shots in mind, etc… The woman who hired me had in mind what she wanted to see, and I bet since I was late they may’ve walked around a bit to check things out beforehand.

3. Learn everyone’s name before you get started. There were two grandparents, four cousins, and two sets of adults. I called one young boy “Malcolm” half the time, and I still don’t know the matriarch’s name. I just called her “Grandma” all day. Had I been early, I probably would’ve had more time to formally get names.

4. You will get dirty. When shooting children outside, be prepared to get dirty. I was lying in wet mud/grass for some shots near a lake today. I was kneeling to get down at their level (don’t shoot from above children!) and my knees and hands came home dirty/muddy.

5. Politely ask parents to let you work. No matter how much the adults want to help by calling to their children while you shoot, ask them politely not to. The kids only look towards the noise and not the camera. To rectify this, you can a) get some sort of noise maker to use yourself (‘cept my camera is heavy!), b) talk to a single parent beforehand (the mother if it’s a single child) to get her to be behind you and at your level if she wants to help get the child’s attention or c) bring an assistant with you.

6. Bring an assistant. That last part brings me to #6. For the first couple of shots, I forgot my fill flash (it was on and ready, but I had the camera set so it wouldn’t go off). Had I had an assistant he or she could’ve a) got the children’s attention for me and b) held a reflector to catch the natural light so I could forego the flash all together. (I’d prefer assistants who you don’t have to pay.)

7. Shoot selectively. shooting portraits with people who are posed, you do not need to take 500 photos. I just kept shooting. I already had a great shot of grandma (nope, still don’t know her name) and the baby but I kept going. Finally she said, “did you get the shot?” Yep, 50 of ‘em.

8. Use a good zoom. If there were not children, I would’ve popped on my 50mm f1.8 EF II prime and went for it. But with children you never know what you need to do or what the child(ren) will do.

9. Time matters. Pick a better time of the day. 2:00pm is not a good time of the day. Too many harsh shadows, squinty eyes, etc… The customer’s husband’s face was blown out on some shots (with and without fill flash), and when a storm began to roll in (we were able to finish before it hit) he commented about being worried. I was just happy it diffused the sun for me.

10. Don’t be afraid to give direction, but don’t always give directions. The customer knew what she wanted, but she’s a dominant personality and was the money. I was fine with that, plus she knew I was nervous. I gave very little direction myself, but there were a few times when I should’ve/could’ve said more. At one point Grandma and Grandpa wanted to get some shots of just the boy and girl (girl must’ve been about 1) and kinda held them up above them near a tree. I am not sure what amount of editing will remove the adults’ arms and shoulders from those shots.

I think these are my top 10 rules for now, but I have not edited the photos nor have I met with the customer for a debriefing (yes, she will read this). I’d love to hear your comments about your own experiences with this.