Photo How To

Just as certain as the crocus and grape hyacinth that burst on the scene seemingly from nowhere, another sure sign of spring is my reliance on a few familiar gadgets to help me celebrate the season. Here are three of the accessories I’d be hard pressed to do without.

I recently attended the TICO Warbird Airshow (which is affiliated with the local Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum), an event held at the Space Coast Regional Airport in Florida each March. This popular three-day event always attracts a large crowd and a good number of people sporting pro-quality DSLRs with huge (high tech, super expensive) lenses attached and a gear bag stuffed full of amazing (also super expensive) photo accessories.

In the spring, the hardcore photographer’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of—what exactly? 

Jim Karageorge has been an eyewitness to the changing face of corporate photography over the years. “Today, the stories that corporate clients want to tell are different from those we told in the past,” Karageorge, a corporate/industrial photographer, observes. “They are geared more toward the human factor than the technologies.”

Modern digital cameras perform so well under dim light at high ISO settings that some photographers haven’t used a camera flash for months (maybe even longer). Well, here’s a news flash for them: for a small investment and a little practice they can turn most shoe-mount flash units into a controllable package of portable sunshine.

Some discouraged photographers complain and say they can’t get good shots because they don’t have the time or funds to travel to exotic, photogenic places. Sorry to rain on their pity party, but everyone can get decent images without a travel budget. Here are a couple projects you can start on tonight, as soon as it gets dark.

Photographers have always looked to the fine art field as a marketing outlet for their personal work but can you really make money from art sales? How do you establish yourself in the business? What are the best marketing tools for finding gallery representation and fine art clients? Is your work truly “fine art”? Certainly there will be many similarities to marketing consumer or commercial photography but the fine art world has some unique pitfalls and opportunities to watch for if you plan to expand into this field.