Posts Tagged Mark Duehmig
Self Published Portfolios
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything on August 13th, 2009
This entry could be called “Printed Portfoilos,” “Self-Published Albums,” or even “How to say thank you for a vacation.”
I’m referring to the many options you have to get a high quality printed book done at a reasonable price. Short run or even single run printings of books. This can be an incredible tool for photographers.
This is the latest version of my portfolio. Email me or call me for a copy.
The first I saw of this service was an imbedded feature in Apple’s very cool iPhoto image management/storage software. Right from within iPhoto you can take your photos and lay them out using templates and hit an order button.
Soon came other book options and, I say this as a dedicated Mac user, they surpassed the quality and features of the books you can buy on iPhoto or the pro-level application Aperture.
Different websites offer different types of books. For example Blurb.com offers both hardback and soft back bound books while viovio.com primarily offers spiral-bound books.
I’ve used or played with several different company’s book printing options. I call them options because some are software programs (free) that you download, some require you to lay out the book in programs like Adobe InDesign or Microsoft
My first version of a printed portfolio. I've learned a few things since this version.
Publisher just using templates they provide. There are pros and cons to each option, but I have to say my preference is toward Blurb.com. The books are of excellent quality, with options like glossy dust jackets that look incredible. They also provide a layout program that allows you tons of flexibility in how the book is latex out. (Version 3 is a huge jump over previous versions, if you’ve tried it before.)
Another plus that Blurb.com offers is their on-line presence. They are gathering a following that communicates through their “Blurberati” web community. (http://blog.blurb.com)
They will also help you sell your books if you want. You can offer your books for sale through their website and you set the price, and determine your profit margin. Imagine providing a coffee table book to the Bride of her wedding photos as a bonus (it costs you about $30-40 depending on size) and she is thrilled. But then her family, wedding party and friends can buy copies too directly from the Blurb website with out you having to pre-order any. And you make a little on the books too.
The book I did for my crew when we sailed the Annapolis to Newport Race a few years ago. This image was taken by local photographer Don Dement, but is one of the best I've seen. (It's hard to take photos of your own boat when you're always aboard.)
I’ve published about 12-15 books so far. A few have been for vacations (I gave my crew a book on a sailing trip we took down the Chesapeake Bay and up the coast. I’m working on another for the Bermuda Ocean Race from last year where we won first place in our division.)
I’m also on the second version of my portfolio. If you’ve been to my website, www.MarkDuehmig.com, you’ve seen all the photos that are in my printed portfolio. But, when I’m speaking with a client, it isn’t good to end our conversation with “great to talk with you, now don’t forget to visit my website.” With a printed portfolio I can show them photos on the spot and leave them with a high-quality reminder of my product.
The 80-page, 10×12 soft cover book I order costs me about $27 each. I pay a few dollars extra when I order them to replace the Blurb logo with my logo. But maybe you could get by with a 40 page version and a smaller size? That lowers your costs dramatically.
A good friend of mine is an extremely skilled cabinet-maker here in Annapolis and the subject of a previous blog entry. (Justin de Gast, www.AnnapolisFineWoodworking.com) He is planning to publish a small book with photos (many are mine) of his work for the same reason I am. It is his portfolio.
Just think: being able to provide a client with a nicely published book is a heck of a lot more fancy than just handing him or her a CD full of images. Just make sure you build in money for this into your quote. Especially the first time until you learn the time commitment on doing the layout well. I’ve spent quite a few hours on my portfolio, getting the right photos in the right order, etc. Nothing good in life is free.
All for now. I need to get back to work and so do you. One last thought about these books though; no matter how much time you spend proofing the books, order only one on your first order. You WILL find errors, or at least stuff you want to fix when you have the hard copy on your hands.
Keep shooting,
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com
Another photo from the race
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything on June 9th, 2009
I didn’t plan to piece-meal out the photos from the race. Just a busier conference than I expected.
Two boats race to catch the class that started before them on the Annapolis to Newport Race.
Here is another quick grab from the photos. Two bright colorful spinnakers on a sea of gray, rainy weather. I’m glad there were more boats on the horizon to give the photo depth, but the fog keeps attention on the boats in the foreground. As always, feedback and critiques of the images are appreciated.
One other tool I forgot to mention. I grabbed a cotton t-shirt before I ran out the door to shoot the race. Every time I raised my camera to get a shot, the lens got spots. Water was dripping off the small cabin top, blowing in the wind and generally everywhere. A big soft piece of cotton allowed me to do a quick wipe between the shots. Much better than a non absorbent lens cloth. (And never use paper products like kleenex or paper towels.)
Ok, back to work.
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com
First photo from Annapolis to Newport 09
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything on June 8th, 2009
Well this has taken a while. When we returned from shooting the race start last Friday, I opened the door to a ringing phone. I transfered my images while I put out fires and ended up packing for a trip instead of culling through them.
The bowman checks the spinnaker at the start of the race from Annapolis to Newport.
I did manage to copy a set onto a small hard drive before I headed out the door for a few days. So as I get a few minutes I’ll dig through them and post them up here. Eventually I’ll create a gallery on www.markduehmig.com but I’ll wait until I get back to my office and my color-corrected monitors. 
The weather that day could result in really powerful images or rather dull colors with poor contrast. And I got both. I chose to shoot slightly underexposed (.7 f/stop under) so that the bright grey skies wouldn’t fool my light meter. I don’t think that was necessary not that I’ve glanced at some of my images, but better to be under exposed than over exposed.
My hopes of getting some good crew shots were frustrated by everyone wearing hoods, hiding their faces and thus their expressions. Rotten.
I shot about 450 images and I think around 40 are worth something. Maybe two or three will make it into my portfolio. When I was shooting film, if i got one really good picture out of a roll, I was thrilled. I guess that is about the same, just the rolls are bigger.
So here is my first shot posted. More to follow.
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com
My humble beginnings…
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything, Focus on April 29th, 2009
I might as well talk about some of my photographic history to get started. Maybe that will help, or hurt, my street cred.
Back in my college days I spent some time in Alaska working on fishing trawlers. The first year I went up north was the year the Exxon Valdez found some rocks and spilled her guts. The oil had creeped down to Kodiak, where I was staying, and brought fishing to a halt.
So not having a job, I lived in the woods a few miles outside of the town of Kodiak until I finally found a job on a trawler. At the time it was traveling up and down the coast of Alaska buying fish and taking them back to canneries in Kodiak. I had with me a cheap little point-and-shoot camera. I took some pictures and sent the undeveloped film back home since I couldn’t affirt to have it developed there. (I was broke.)
When I got back home that fall, my Mom, who was trained as a artist, had developed my film and even had a few prints enlarged. They were pretty good, she said. (One of the photos is in my portfolio now. If I can figure out how to insert it here, I will.)
A foggy morning in Kodiak
Well, being told you have some talent gives you a bit of enthusiasm. I started to have visions of National Geographic covers. Someday.
And I scraped enough money together to buy a Minolta X-700. I carried that everywhere. And eventually wore it out. That is when I made the jump to Nikon.
A job or two out of college I started doing field service work for an engineering company. They were still growing and the winters weren’t too busy for me. So my boss wanted me to start shooting video (I was already shooting still photos, of course) when I traveled to construction sites and during the slow winters, edit them into sales videos.
Well the technical end of video is very similar to still photography so I quickly took to it. I started in Hi-8 and bought a two gigabyte hard drive. (In 1993 or 94, that cost a bundle.) This is when I also switched to Macintosh. And for many years video production has gone hand in hand with still photography. (See my alter ego at http://www.EncompassFilmWorks.com). But, still photography has always been my passion. My creative outlet. Recently I have taken efforts to return to my roots and dedicating more energy to one-frame-at-a-time photography. This blog is part of that.
There is a link to my portfolio in the upper right of this blog. It is www.MarkDuehmig.com. (If you didnt come to this blog through my website.) Please have a look and and let me know what you think. I’d love your feedback. Many of my friends are photogs so don’t be afraid to get critical and I’ll learn from it.
Thanks and more later.
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com