I think most people who are "arty" struggle with the technical aspects of photography.

I would have to categorize this statement as a generalization - especially in regards to photography and writing. These two seem to have a mental association that is very similar. There are plenty of writers who are quite decent photographers and vice versa. I would hazard a guess that the same areas of the brain are used in the composition of both. Don't get me wrong - not every writer is a photographer nor is every photographer a writer - but it seems that the concentration of the two is higher than similar combinations of artistry - say between painter and sculptor or sculptor and writer or writer and painter.

I do agree when it comes to stock photography, often the artist has a tougher time because he/she tends to stretch themselves creatively which doesn't always mean "commercial". I know I tend to try different things and a lot of what I shoot is not stock photography at all. It does not mean that I am less technically proficient, only that sometimes I sacrifice "technical perfection" in order to achieve something more emotional.

On a personal level, I have a tough time leaving a photo "unfinished". It is like writing a short story and stopping after the first draft. I always want to finish the photo and that is what so many microstock agencies do not want. They want the image raw, as in uncooked, and I want to add spices and grill it to perfection. It is often a dilemma, but I'd rather have this dilemma than to have no creative spark at all. It keeps everything far more interesting.

Can the aesthetic concepts be taught? I believe so, but it is not something that is taught through the traditional teacher/student method. It takes longer - much longer. And the "student" must also want to learn. It is not a matter of teaching someone to look outward to see the beauty, but inward - to discover not only what they like, but why. Our world population has become involved in a "race to see who's first" mentality. That doesn't work with any artistic creativity. Before the aesthetics can be taught, you first have to break down that thinking and instill a concept of "slow down and SEE what you are looking at."

I was in a mall with a friend of mine (this was many, many moons ago) and he was hurrying from store to store, take a few minutes to see if the store had what he wanted, then on to the next store. We were between two stores when I told him to slow down. He asked why. I asked, "What do you see?" He replied, "Stores." I then went on to explain to him what I saw: a woman washing the face of a child, a man with a girl young enough to be his daughter (probably was, but more fun to think of her as his mistress), four high school girls giggling, two high school boys puffing out their chests trying to impress the four girls, a woman in a business suit looking very serious, and old couple sitting on a bench watching people go by, two women stopping at every window display and oohing and ahhing over each one, kids watching the fountains, mothers watching the kids, etc. With each person I gave a quick one or two sentence explanation of why they were doing whatever or who they were. The explanations had nothing to do with "knowing", but adding imagination to the scene, giving each person a purpose that fit their actions.

My friend had been taught from an early age not ask why. Children are taught "don't ask why, just do it", but it is the "why" that makes any artistic endeavor successful or not. The effort of teaching someone anything artistic is to teach them to ask themselves why. Why do I like this shot? Why do I feel an emotional surge by it? Why do I want to share it? Why would I care about remembering this moment? Why? Why? Why?

It is not until a person can answer this question that they can begin to grow. It does not matter whether the answer makes sense to anyone else, it only needs to make sense to the artist/photographer. So, yes, you can teach the aesthetic to someone if you can teach them to wonder "why".

I think what it comes down to, especially here in the U.S., is The Letter of the Law Vs. The Spirit of the Law. The Letter of the Law is the law itself. The Spirit of the Law is why it was enacted in the first place. Unfortunately, in our litigation-happy society, the letter of the law has become closer and closer to absolute and the spirit of the law has become mostly ignored.

Let me give an example of this: About ten years ago or so in Colorado, a 6 or 7 year old girl grabbed her mother's lunch instead of her own and took it to school. When she opened it at school, she found a knife her mother had placed in there to cut an apple. The little girl did the right thing and immediately told her teacher about it and what had happened. Despite the fact that is was simply a mix-up, the girl was EXPELLED for bringing a weapon to school. Even when the confusion was cleared up and the school admitted the girl had done the right thing by informing her teacher, the expulsion was not reversed because the "no weapons tolerated" law was broken. Even the state supreme court would not overrule the school's actions. So even though the law was enacted in order to quell violence in schools and the girl's intentions were never even remotely violent in nature, the law refused to concede the point, thus the Letter of the Law trumped the Spirit of the Law.

Now, to apply this to the argument of trademarks in photos - if one takes a shot of a city skyline with several trademarked logos in focus the question becomes what is the selling point of the image. Is it the skyline or the logos that make it marketable? If the image has market value without the logos, then you could argue that you are not making money on the logos. If the logos are required to make the image marketable, then you would be in violation of the trademark issues. Since it would be difficult to prove it thus without removing the logos, it then becomes an issue of a company's right to protect their brand - which many companies pursue vigorously. In this case, the law will almost always side with the company and the Letter of the Law. It becomes extremely tricky, but most of the microstock agencies are erring on the side of caution rather than get bogged down in legal conflicts which they probably wouldn't win anyway.

I don't necessarily agree with the way the issue is represented, but it is the way things work here in the U.S. Trademark regulations were enacted in order to prevent rival companies from creating a similar look in order to market their products - not to prevent photographers from plying their trade. But it has been corrupted by the Letter of the Law to such a degree that corporations vigorously combat any usage of their logos and trademarks without permission.

On the other hand, Roadkills R Us , www.rru.com, has proven that the big boys can be fought and at least annoyed enough to quit. Scroll down the left side to the Toys R Us link to read this poor guy's battles against the corporate bully.

I used to belong to a service like that called askme.com where people would sign up as experts on a subject and then answer questions submitted by people who needed the information. The problem I found on the site - and all sites like it that I've seen since - is that you get too many know-it-alls that really don't know squat. Oh, they talk a good game, but to the "experts" who really are experts, it becomes obvious rather quickly who the charlatans are. The problem is that those seeking help don't.

An extreme example of how bad the advice on these types of sites can be is on askme.com there was a fellow who claimed to be an expert in somewhere around 40-50 areas. I was reading his advice to one person which, if followed, would have cost that person at least $10K to fix the problems caused by the moron's advice. There were several experts that continually complained about this "expert's" advice, yet because he was so active, the company allowed him to continue posting crap.

This problem exists on forums as well. There are always a few know-it-alls that post far too often about things they think they know. I got in an argument on a website design forum with a fellow who had no idea of the reality of copyright law and simply kept stating his opinions as fact. It was quite obvious that the guy thought "this is the way I think it should work, so I'll state it as truth."

The caveat is: Caveat Emptor! There are charlatans out there and a lot of people who never grew out of the teenage "I know everything" mental process.

On a nice aside, I've not found an obvious know-it-all on this site. I've read some very opinionated posts, but the forum members have the maturity to qualify statements with phrases such as "in my experience" and "what's worked for me is..." Maybe it is that because we are photographers - and photographers are artists - and artists tend to have the belief that we can always learn more and improve - we are by nature slightly more humble. Of course, it could simply be that this site has pulled in a more mature fellowship than many sites and forums.

Of course, all of this is IMHO. 

Jeff

Okay, I'm starting to get into some more artistic, non-stock oriented photography including glamour, fashion and artistic nudes. Can anyone recommend a service something like CafePress that specializes in the production/distribution of prints of that sort.

A non-registered image really isn't copyrighted under the protection of the law.

Actually, at least in the U.S., even if you don't register the image, it is still protected, but by registering you gain additional advantages. First - it is easier to prove who owns the images. Second - Without registering, you can sue only for actual damages whereas if it is registered, you can also add in such wonderful things as court costs and lawyer fees and potential earnings that may have been lost and compensation for the general headache of having to jump through hoops to protect your property, etc.

Of course, collecting on damages is a whole different matter, especially if the perpetrator lives in a different country.

Jeff

Miz, your picture sucks.   

I don't know, Dan, I kinda like Miz's shot. It reminds me of that "I am not quite asleep enough to dream, my acid reflux is kicking in, and what . is that cat up to now?"  feeling I get every night about 10PM.

You can put a gorilla in a business suit, but you not have a CEO.

Yes, yes you do. Just look at the all the overpaid CEOs who give jobs to China and wonder why no one can afford to buy what their selling.   

That is one of the funniest (and maybe even helpful) things I've seen in ages. Maybe I'll try it on my car, my kitchen, my bedroom, my carpet, my walls - well, everything I own. 

Remember, Miz, some people either don't get your sense of humor for one reason or another, or simply don't have a sense of humor themselves. Your best bet is to simply dodge their flaming arrows and expose your backside to them in a gesture of respect.

Except for stock photography, megapixels as such have lost their value. In a way, it's a good thing and very democratic. What camera people can afford will no longer be important for the quality of the photos. The abilities of the photographer still will.

I agree with Epixx. At what point is it that megapixels stops mattering? This strikes me much like the Intel/AMD wars a few years back with both trying to produce the fastest processor. When they hit 3 GHz, it stopped mattering because the processors were faster than most people needed. I think that is about where digital cameras are now. Let's face it, a 10 MP camera can put out a pretty striking 10X13 photo which is about as large as the average person's printer can put out.

Where I see this heading in the next two or three years is less toward the Megapixel side and more toward the quality/speed issues. I see companies like Nikon and Canon developing even better sensors with less noise and faster image processing and storage. I think you'll see this on both the professional end and the consumer end of cameras, but especially at the consumer end once the average Joe realizes that he doesn't really need a 16 MP camera, but a high quality 12 MP sensor to do the same job. Consumers are much smarter than about their purchases than they were  even 10 years ago, but digital photography is new to many of them and they are not "in the know" - yet.

That does not mean that there will not be a market for higher Megapixel cameras, merely that the people who need or want them will be more specialized. Just like a gamer or a digital designer often needs a faster processor and memory, an avid amateur photographer will seek out higher end P&S cameras or low to medium end dSLRs.

On the professional end of the spectrum, I believe you will see the MP craze slow when 20-30 MP cameras become the norm. What will become ultimately important is the sensor quality. In the next several years, I would not even be surprised to see "specialty" sensors with embedded firmware that excel at one thing - perhaps super-fast sensors for capturing action such as sports, sensors designed for indoor/lowlight situations, sensors for outside/landscape shots, etc. Ideally, these sensors would be easily swappable (essentially plug-and-play), but specialty cameras would probably be the norm - at least at the low end of the dSLRs. Think of it this way: Right now you buy the best general camera you can and then buy a lens for the type of photography you intend to do and come out with some great shots. But imagine if you bought a lens and sensor combination that were intended to work together exclusively. For that matter, the sensor might be built into the lens itself rather than the camera body. Of course, this scenario is quite a ways out into the future, but as people continue to specialize more and more, I can't help but seeing it become magnified in the photography industry in the coming years. You are already seeing it, and have been for some time now, with companies like Fuji making cameras designed primarily for "forensic photography". This will make it easier for people with little or no training to take extraordinary images. The upside is that the images will all be "perfect" (take that with a grain of salt). The downside is that all the photos will look the same.

That's the "business" end of things. At the other end of the spectrum, you will still see the "artists" who require more flexibility than these specialty sensors/lenses provide. I believe the big name companies will always cater to these folks as these are the ones that give a company its reputation. Sure there will be companies that say "our camera is the best macro or telephoto or panoramic camera on the market", but companies like Canon and Nikon will be able to point to the best photographic art and say "Hey, that was taken with our camera" which will always translate into sales for those who are committed to the art-side of the industry.

Remember, these are really super-simplified scenarios, but from what I've seen, this is the direction almost every industry is taking. The reality is surely going to include something entirely unexpected. That is what makes the future so captivating.

I actually went off a little bit on FT a couple of months ago in an email to them. Between the hours of 11 and 5 (EST) I had a 10% approval ratio. Everything reviewed outside of that time frame had about and 85-90% acceptance ratio. The discrepancy even included images from the same batches. I made a very polite (if you believe that) suggestion that they make sure their reviewers were on the same page and that anyone rejecting photos arbitrarily to clean up his backlog be dealt with in a stern manner. Don't know if they really paid any attention, but my rejections have been somewhat more consistent and predictable in the last month or so.