Roland DGA Corp., a leading provider of wide-format inkjet printers and printer/cutters is demonstrating the companys VersaUV LEF-12 benchtop UV flatbed printer at the Adobe ADIM14 conference March 9-12 in Boulder, Colorado.
Hosted by Adobe Principal Creative Director Russell Brown, the “Adobe Inspirational Master-class” event is designed for graphic designers, art directors, photographers and creative directors who are seeking fresh, inventive ways to use the Adobe Creative Cloud. ADIM14 attendees learn about new software tools and imaging techniques, and gain skills they can immediately apply to design and photography projects.
“We are honored to be included in this exciting event and look forward to introducing the Adobe community to our VersaUV technology,” said Hiroshi Ono, group product manager for Roland DGA Corp. ”The LEF is the perfect printer for any graphics professional looking to expand into the personalization market. Based on our advanced UV-LED technology, it enables direct printing on virtually any 3D surface for maximum creative freedom.”
Available in 12- and 20-inch models, LEF series printers print CMYK, white and clear inks directly on three-dimensional items up to 3.94 inches thick, including pens, key chains, golf balls, photo frames, giftware, industrial products and parts, and even tablet computers and smart phone covers.
“Selling Fine Art Photography” is the focus of a free educational resource guide from PhotoShelter. The guide’s authors acknowledge that there doesn’t seem to be a single ‘how-to’ formula for selling photography as fine art. But when they asked art-world experts for tips and profiled photographers who are succeeding in the fine-art world, there do seem to be some steps that might increase your odds of success. A lot of the advice focuses on making the best possible work, then focusing on building relationships with people who respond to it.
Part 1 of this guide includes:
Six tips to get non-profit galleries to feature your work
Six tips to get your work featured online
Insights from the owner of fine-art printing business
Part 2 profiles seven photographers who have found their way into the fine art world.
Jimmy Williams talks about building a reputation by starting local
Greg Marinovich suggests sharing the stories behind your images
Brooke Shaden explains why passion is the secret to getting 244,000 Facebook followers
James Bouret discusses marketing tactics that can help your work get noticed
Pete Carroll emphasizes the need to strive for the best-quality print
Matt Suess describes ways to connect with potential buyers
Bess Greenberg talks why she founded the 25CPW gallery
“Understand what makes you unique, what story you have to tell, and then refine your skills to try and communicate the message in the clearest way possible,” says Shaden.
In her essay about working with non-profit galleries, Hannah Glasgow of The Center for Fine Art Photography advises photographers to “Be bold and true to yourself” and make work that matters to you.
Some of the more seasoned photographers observed that gallerists and collectors are interested in images with historical value or themes that stand the test of time.
In other words: It’s impossible to know if that young musician you are photographing today will turn out to be the next Jimi Hendrix or Elvis Presley. So always do you best work and keep good archives.
The guide on “Selling FIne-Art Photography” is part of a collection of free, educational guides that PhotoShelter has developed to help professional photographers and aspiring pros take a more strategic and focused approach to selling their images. Other guides in the PhotoShelter Library offer tips related to sell more sports photography, event photography, portrait photography, wedding photography, and corporate and industrial photography.
With more than 80,000 clients, PhotoShelter is a worldwide leader in photography portfolio websites and sales and marketing tools for photographers.
Publish-on-demand (POD) printing has forever changed the way authors approach book publishing. But just because everyone can easily publish a book doesn’t mean every book will meet the high standards that traditional publishers (and their readers) expect.
Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency (SBPRA), an independent publishing company, has identified five major editing errors that prevent authors from having their books accepted by the publishing industry:
Neglecting to proofread the work before submitting.
Thoroughly review your work before submission. Go over it objectively, remembering that this is a marketable product. If you have a propensity to use certain words and expressions repeatedly, be aware of them and take pains to avoid them. Don’t submit manuscripts with duplicate or missing chapters.
Overlooking typographical, punctuation, and grammar errors.
This could be an endless list. Some of the most common mistakes.
Using “it’s” instead of “its,” and vice versa
Misusing or omitting apostrophes (Bills dad is incorrect; so is Dad’s bill’s)
Using hyphens when dashes are required
Inconsistently formatting numbers, dates, and times of day
Capitalizing Every Word In A Title Or Subtitle. Standard publishing practice dictates the capitalization of only important words, not articles and short prepositions
Confusing the spelling of homophones, such as lightning and lightening, or complimentary and complementary.
Using inconsistent capitalization, such as capitalizing “Bible” in some places and making it lower-case in other places.
Using US and UK spellings and style in the same manuscript, resulting in humor and color in some places and humour and colour elsewhere.
Using “that” instead of “who” when referring to people.
Failing to Obtain Permission to Use Copyrighted Material.
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission for the use of all materials included in the book (not just text, but illustrations, charts, graphs). As the author, you must also ensure that all citations from other works are correctly quoted and that the sources are correctly cited.
Failing to Include All Material in a Single File.
Along with the main text, the manuscript file should include the “front matter” (title page, copyright page, epigraph, dedication, table of contents, preface, foreword, and introduction) as well as the “back matter” (bibliography, glossary, and endnotes or footnotes if used). Nobody will ever know if you intended this material if you don’t supply it with your manuscript. Adding it after the page layout has been completed is time-consuming, inefficient, and potentially expensive.
Failing to Develop a Professional, Yet Individual Style.
This is a really big one. So many authors don’t make the effort to learn how to write effectively. To compensate, they load their prose with “filler” phrases such “It is important to remember” or “I want to take this opportunity to say” instead of just beginning with the essential statement. Or they try to appear up-to-date by using slang like “What’s up with that?” or “homeboy”—clichés that are bound to sound dated a few years after the book is published.
The Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency (SBPRA) has the experience, expertise, and international network that can help authors be more successful in today’s evolving publishing industry. The firm offers book publishing services and comprehensive marketing support.
If your iPhone images might rank among the best of the nascent Mobile Photography Movement, consider entering them in the Mobile Masters PROOF contest. The contest will help generate interest in the full-day iPhoneography Mobile Masters seminar that will be held March 26 before the 2014 MacWorld/iWorld Conference March 27-29 in San Francisco.
The Mobile Masters workshop will be led by three accomplished professionals in photography, design, production, and art direction. All three are passionate and experienced artists in what they consider a fast-emerging genre of photography. The speakers are:
Registered workshop attendees can enter the contest free. If you can’t attend the seminar, you enter a portfolio of images for $30. Entry deadline is March 2.
Each of the 48 contest winners will receive a feature spread in the second edition of the Mobile Masters iTunes eBook along with other prizes.
“Our aim is to showcase Mobile Photography as a distinctive new movement in the history of the art form,” explains Dan Marcolina. “Last year’s edition was by invitation only. But with so much exciting work emerging from a diverse range of people, we wanted to invite everyone — from novice to pro — to submit work for inclusion. We want to identify the world’s top 48 artists who are breaking new ground in mobile image discovery and invention.”
Since good work is more about a sustained vision across a body of work (instead of one or two lucky shots), the judges want to see e-portfolios of work submitted via a link to Flickr, Instagram or other site.
If your work is chosen for inclusion, the judges will select six of your images to feature in the e-book. The two entry categories include:
Image Discovery: straight shots (street photography) with minimal image manipulation
Image Invention: images that use app stacking techniques to create abstracted reality, composite images, or painting-like effects.
To help ensure that the results will serve as a historical record of the best work in this emerging new evolution in photography, the Mobile Masters PROOF content will be judged by three experts in traditional photography and three experts in mobile photography. The winners will be announced on March 26 and your images will be shown at MacWorld/iWorld.
iPhoneography Mobile Masters Workshop
If you want to fine-tune your mobile photography skills, the all-day (10 am to 5 pm) workshop can be a good place to start. Marcolina, Hollingsworth and Kuster have researched and refined the best workflows for shooting, using apps, and sharing images. They will not just teach you how they work, but why they choose to do things a certain way.
At the iPhoneography workshop held at the 2013 Macworld/iWorld, the seminar leaders discussed how mobile photography was crossing the threshold of viability and acceptability. Now, they believe the public has begun to recognize that mobile photography is unleashing a vast new genre of art, products and services.
They regard the Mobile Masters PROOF competition as way to prove to the world that mobile photography is maturing as an art form.
Professional photographers and photography enthusiasts are optimistic about their ability to make more money this year from photography. That’s one finding reported in PhotoShelter’s new report “The Photographer’s Outlook on 2014.”
The report is based on the results of a survey of business goals, aspirations, and priorities that PhotoShelter conducted via e-mail in November, 2013. More than 5,700 photographers responded, with 73 percent from the U.S.Sixty-nine percent of the respondents were male; and 31 percent were female.
The survey also investigated the differences and similarities between photography pros (those who make most of their income from photography) and photo enthusiasts (those who earn less than 50 percent of their income from photography).
The report notes that because pro-level gear and photographic education is so readily accessible to everyone, it can be difficult to tell whether an image has been made by someone who makes their full income from photography or someone who spend their free time shooting photographs.
“Today, every creative taking professional-quality images is not necessarily doing so as a full-time photographer,” says Andrew Fingerman, CEO of PhotoShelter.
PhotoShelter posed different sets of questions to photography pros and those who categorized themselves as enthusiasts (students, part-time photographers, hobbyists/enthusiasts). For example, enthusiasts were asked what their primary occupation was and if (and how) they ever made money from their work. Professionals answered questions about how they bring in revenue and what tools they use to conduct their business.
Similarities between Pros and Enthusiasts
One key finding was that most professionals and enthusiasts will invest time and money to improve their technical skills and photo-business knowledge. The survey suggests they also plan to attend more industry events and spend more time marketing their work. Both groups said they pursue more than one specialty (96% for professionals and 95% for enthusiasts). The most popular primary specialty is portrait photography (13% for pros; 11% for enthusiasts).
In terms of making money, the biggest challenge faced by both groups was finding new clients. To improve their chances of getting more jobs, many will focus most on word-of-mouth referrals and social media.
Differences between Pros and Enthusiasts
Not surprisingly, photographers who make a living from photography are more focused on marketing their work.
92 percent of professionals have a website dedicated to showcasing their photography, whereas only 65 percent of enthusiasts do.
48 percent of professionals use Facebook as the primary social network to market their photography business, whereas 64 percent of enthusiasts do.
93 percent of professionals plan to make investments to improve their photography skills in 2014, compared to 79 percent of enthusiasts.
One stat worth noting is that 84 percent of the enthusiasts said they had made money from their images. Of the enthusiasts who made money, 87 percent said the money was earned through print sales or commissioned assignments.
The Photographer’s Outlook on 2014 is the latest in PhotoShelter’s ongoing series of free business guides for photographers and marketing professionals. PhotoShelter’s library includes 30+ educational guides including topics such as creating a successful photography portfolio, email marketing, and starting a photography business. All can be downloaded free.
About PhotoShelter
PhotoShelter helps people and organizations who are passionate about their photos do more with them. From creating beautiful websites and securely backing up their best images to building an audience and selling photos online, PhotoShelter is trusted by over 80,000 enthusiasts, freelancers, and established pros worldwide.
Creative professionals who can help companies keep pace with technology can earn heftier paychecks, according to the recently released 2014 Salary Guides from Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group.
Employers are prepared to offer increased compensation this year to skilled information technology (IT) and digital professionals who can help organizations meet the following objectives:
seize new opportunities in mobile communications
keep information and networks secure
turn data into business intelligence.
“It’s becoming imperative for companies to build their online presence and connect with customers through mobile channels but finding the specialized talent to design and develop for this fast-evolving space can be difficult,” said John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group. ”Similar recruiting challenges exist around business intelligence. Companies want to use their information more strategically, but they struggle to find skilled professionals who can analyze raw data.”
Listed below are six roles that are among those expected to see the most substantial increases in average starting compensation in 2014, according to the Robert Half Salary Guides. (The salaries listed are U.S. national averages based on data published in the 2014 Salary Guides from Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group. Actual salary ranges may vary depending on location.)
1. Mobile applications developer: As companies expand their mobile initiatives to connect with consumers anytime,anywhere, they need professionals who can develop for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Experienced mobile applications developers can expect to see the largest increase (7.8 percent) in starting compensation of any tech position listed in this year’s Salary Guide, with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $144,000.
2. Business intelligence analyst: Organizations of all types want to derive more value from the data they generate, collect and store by turning it into actionable intelligence. Skilled business intelligence analysts can anticipate a 7.4 percent boost in starting compensation in 2014, with salaries ranging from $101,250 to $142,250.
3. Information systems security manager: Keeping data secure and protecting users and the network from cyber threats is a priority for any modern business. Information systems security managers who can assess and remediate vulnerabilities, threats and intrusions are in demand, and are projected to see a 6.8 percent bump in base compensation this year, with average starting salaries between $115,250 and $160,000.
4. User experience designer: Designing engaging user experiences is essential to the success of any mobile or web initiative — and requires specialized talent. User experience designers can expect to see average starting salaries between $78,000 and $120,000, up 7.5 percent from 2013.
5. Mobile designer: Compelling content and functionality are vital to delivering a satisfying interactive mobile experience. Skilled mobile designers can anticipate average starting salaries to increase 6.3 percent in 2014, to the range of $66,000 to $103,000.
6. User experience specialist: Developing innovative, interactive user experiences for web and mobile applications requires creativity and technical expertise. User experience specialists can expect to receive base compensation in the range of $79,000 to $118,000, a gain of 5.9 percent over last year.
Both Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group are divisions of Robert Half, the world’s first and largest specialized staffing firm and a recognized leader in professional staffing services.
PHOTOGRAPHERS. Until recently, if you wanted to experiment with motion photography, you needed special tools and know-how. Now, Google+ allows users to automatically animate a series of still photographs and turn them into ,motion photography.
To celebrate and explore the exciting potential of this new technology, Saatchi Art, the Saatchi Gallery, and Google+ have announced a new prize, the Motion Photography Prize. They are inviting photographers all over the world to participate in a celebration of this new creative art form.
The Motion Photography Prize will recognize works in six categories and will be judged by a panel of forward- thinkers, including film director Baz Luhrmann and artists Shezad Dawood and Cindy Sherman.
Simon McCheung, “An Underwater Spell,” The Saatchi Gallery
Winners will have their works showcased on Saatchi Art, the world’s leading online art gallery for emerging artists. Winners will also be featured in a special exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London that will open April 16. One overall winner will have the opportunity to go on the trip of a lifetime with a photographer or filmmaker of their choice.
The competition opened for submissions February 5, with the first category of Landscape. A new category will be introduced each week until
“We are very excited to be embracing motion photography as a new art form and are looking forward to seeing how it redefines the creativity of artists and photographers all over the world, ” says Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator of Saatchi Art.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Google+ on an initiative that will provide a global platform for exciting new motion photography and highlight the potential of the very latest technology to encourage creativity,” adds Nigel Hurst, CEO of the Saatchi Gallery.
“If a picture can tell a thousand words, motion photography can tell a whole story. We’re excited about enabling anybody with a smartphone to tell their story in a new creative way,” says Cristian Cussen, Head of Marketing at Google+ EMEA.
This initiative follows in the success of the Google Photography Prize, a collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery in 2012 to find the photography stars of the future, which received nearly 20,000 entries from 148 countries.
Once each category has been announced and is accepting submissions, you can upload 1 motion photograph through your Google+ account. Your photo will need to be in the .GIF format.
If you want Google+ to convert a series of images into a motion photograph for you, you can upload a series of at least five photos (between 5 and 50 still photographs that are no more than 5MB each and in the JPEG format. (Users of the Google+ mobile app can enable Auto Backup, which automatically backs up all the photos you take with your phone in a mobile album.) Google+ will stitch your photos together to create a short animation. If the photos were taken without a tripod, Google+ will stabilize your photos before stitching them.
Landscape: February 5 – 25
Category 2: February 12 – March 4
Category 3: February 19 – March 11
Category 4: February 26 – March 18
Category 5: March 5 – March 25
Category 6: March 12 – April 1
About Saatchi Art
Saatchi Art is a leading online art gallery, connecting people with art and artists they love. Saatchi Art offers a wide selection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and photography in a range of prices. It also provides artists with an expertly curated environment in which to exhibit and sell their work.
About the Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery was founded in 1985 with the aim of bringing contemporary art to as wide an audience as possible and make it accessible by providing an innovative platform for emerging artists to show their work. Over the last four years the Saatchi Gallery has hosted ten out of the top 15 most visited exhibitions in London, according to The Art Newspaper’s survey of international museum attendance. Museum Analytics also ranked it among the world’s top three most liked museums on Facebook and Twitter.
About Google+
Google+ will celebrate its third anniversary in June, 2014. The 540 million people and organizations who use Google+ upload 1.5 billion photos every week. Google+ is currently the only platform on the web that is able to analyze uploaded photos, stabilize them and turn them into motion.
