Work Habits

Sometimes I think I have ADD (other times my wife is sure), but anyway, I'm not the most organized person in the world. As a result, I have had to learn to set up routines which reduce errors.

For example: in my backpack, I have two inside pockets. The one on the right always has memory cards ready to use, the left ones that have been exposed. I never break this rule and I never forget which is which.

When I set up the tripod, I always have one leg pointing forward, two back (so I can stand between the legs).

I prefer manual exposure for a number of reasons but one is I don't forget that I dialed in an exposure correction and forgot to remove it.

All my worked on images go into a documents folder, labelled sequentially and a new one added when the last one has a lot of images. this means that all my good photographs sit in one of (currently) 14 folders and I can quickly find an image to reprint. There are lots of ways to do this, this method happens to work for me. Every so often I burn a dvd set of backups of my good images (as well as a backup hard drive) and all I have to do is go to each folder and back up any images changed since the last backup. As these are in addition to the previous backup (not over it), if I find that I have made edits to an image which I regret, it's still possible to go back to how the image was a couple of years ago.

If I do something significant to an image, I will version the file so I can always go back to the previous version - eg. using Akvis Enhancer, I try to save an unenhanced version (which may become important if I am making larger prints than usual). Some people save output sharpened images by specifying size, as I print in a number of different sizes to suit the customer, I find that impractical so I don't save output sharpening at all - sure it takes a minute to sharpen the file before reprinting - but it's not a big deal and sure means less clutter on the hard drive.

When I sell an image, I use a 2H pencil to very lightly sign the back, date the print and indicated my web address. I include with the print an info sheet which gives some background to the image (and sometimes the techniques and equipment). It also specifies which printer and paper I have used, supplies my address and website and email (hopefully to generate future sales - it helps).

I find customers spend at least as much time looking at the back of the print (the info sheet) as they do the front. Even with close up and abstract images in which 'place' isn't really important, they like the story of the image (and for the most part couldn't care about the technical details. I think it was Alain Briot who said that customers are buying an experience, not a print. This may be one reason that personal sales generally far outstrip internet sales - it's not just a matter of inspecting print quality (which frankly probably means nothing to many of our customers anyway).