I spent last weekend in San Simeon working some architecture angles at Hearst Castle. Since I wasn’t allowed to use a tripod and therefore couldn’t use a T/S Lens to correct for distortion I focused mostly on wide angle shots and some low light interior stuff.  When I got home and started culling images I came across this one, at first glance I though it was “maybe” but then… D’OH!  I cut off the tree tops.  So this gets an instant “R” for reject.

But a shot or two later I find that I did take two steps back, zoom out to 24mm and give those trees their tops back. On a side note this one will likely still fall in the reject pile because the exposure on the sky is so uneven; that’s what I get for using a circular polarizer with the sun at camera left…

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Now that New Year formalities are over I figure I should get down to business.  The site is going through a bit of redesign this week nothing too drastic but I figured I need to add a gallery, an “about” page and probably a way to get in contact with me (you know;in case someone wants to contact me).

mtk

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Happy New Year 2009! I hope it is healty, happy and prosperous for everyone. 

2008 was a pretty good year; did some traveling (got lost in the Gobi Desert), took some pictures, sold some pictures, got a new camera (or two) and nearly fulfilled my 2008 New Year’s Resolution.  What was my resolution you ask?  Well, for 2008 it was to take 6 (six) images that were good enough (both in composition and image quality) to print (at 17×22), frame and sell in a limited of editions of 10 each.  So out of the thousands of images taken in 2008 I got (drumroll please)… 4 (four)! Which was pretty good if you ask me. Sure I had quite a few images that were pretty good (some I felt damn good); but in the end only 4 made the cut. 

Selling my work was quite an experience.  I don’t quite know how to describe it; I sell commercial work all the time, but selling something as “art” was somehow different.  I took it personally (which I never do with commercial stuff), I was actually concerned with people’s opinion.  Well let me rephrase that, I’m always concerned with the client’s opinion (after all they are paying for it so I’d better care), but I don’t take it personally when they don’t like it or want me to make a change; it’s just part of the business.  But this was different I cared what people thought, I mean really cared.  I remember walking into a framer with one of the buyers (he opted to buy an unframed print; and pick his own frame); there were 20 people in store not including the staff and every one of them had something to say about the image (some good, some bad) needless to say I was very uncomfortable.  And things only got worse when the framer asked me to sign the matte (the signature on the image was covered by his choice of matte) and a few of the customers realized I was the photographer.  That made for a few awkward moments but in the end resulted in another sale, so I guess it was a good thing.

I haven’t decided on a goal for 2009 yet but I’ll post it here when I do.

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