atomicphoto

Since I’m not posting as frequently as I would like, I’m going to change up the format a little bit and start posting more photos on each entry. With as much space as our publications allot photos, I’m sometimes asked to bring back a large volume of images. So if I have the goods, I figure I might as well share them.

My role as a photographer with ThisWeek is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it’s awesome to be able to look at a printed photo page with a dozen of my photos. On the other hand, it’s really hard to get a dozen awesome photos from an event. I sometimes feel like I’m focusing on volume rather than quality. This has definitely forced me to change my shooting habits.

I’ve always tried working different angles and shooting numerous photos of my subjects. A lot of time was invested in each subject. When I’m asked to shoot an assignment for a photo page, I have to change my approach. If that’s the case, I’ll shoot a few frames and move on, rather than working the situation and waiting for a moment.

I used to think that I was an unlucky photographer. I’d invest a lot of time waiting for a moment with a subject that sometimes never materialized. In the end, I would be left with a mediocre photo that took a long time to produce. When shooting in volume, I’ve found myself stumbling across more of these moments. Yeah, I make a lot of photos that are just nice, but I’m also catching a lot more of the good moments as well.

My intention with this post wasn’t to get into all that, but it was nice to introspectively think about and type it.

On another note, please check out the “around the net” RSS feed in the right hand column. I spend a lot of time reading photo, political and tech-related blogs, and I’ve found that Google Reader has a sweet feature to let me share the posts I find most interesting. Click here to view a page with the full posts or click on the orange RSS button to subscribe to the feed. I share some of the items with friends on Facebook, but this feed has way more content.

If anyone has any WordPress experience and can help better format the list of links, please don’t hesitate to share. I’m working on making that module easier to read.

Ana constantly reminds me that I work as a photographer for a living, yet somehow we don’t have any photos hanging in our apartment. I’ve never had a photo printer at home, so it’s my thinking that I’d rather save the money we’d spend making prints at Cord Camera or Printroom.com and invest in a good photo printer. I saw what I thought was a good deal on a decent printer at Staples earlier in the week, but I wanted to do some internet research before pulling the trigger.

I spent better part of the afternoon today looking at printers online. For about $300, I can get a printer that does 13×19″ glossy, archival prints. Both HP and Epson have models in this price range. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal until I started calculating the cost of paper and ink.

HP Premium Plus high gloss paper costs $35 at Staples for a 50-count bundle of 8.5×11. OK, I suppose I can handle that. It’s a heavy, tangible object that will probably outlive me.

Then I start looking at ink.

That’s when I stumbled across the above chart that compares price per milliliter of various common liquids. The cost of HP black ink blew bottled water out of the water, not to mention human blood, penicillin, and Red Bull. I’m not sure about the specific data in the chart, but a recent antitrust lawsuit against HP alleges some ink can run upwards of $8,000 per gallon. The lawsuit also addresses the ridiculous steps printer companies have taken to prevent the usage of “generic” inks.

Now I’m never going to use a gallon of black ink, but proportional to usage, the cost of ink is probably going to be the deciding factor on whether or not Ana gets some wall decoration. Looks like now I have to figure out which photo printer uses ink most efficiently and whose brands of ink are the cheapest. I had no idea this was going to be such an ordeal.