Emily Buchanan is a writer and blogger working for Howling Basset, a network of wedding photographers in Kent, UK. She'd cautiously call herself an amateur photographer and prefers to shoot with film (she, too, has a serious case of OCN and it is contagious). Follow Howling Basset on Twitter and Facebook.

By now, it’s a dated debate.Does the ease of a digital dark room hinder the legitimacy of an image or are we all just suffering from a strand of OCN (Obsessive Compulsive Nostalgia) bought on by digitalisation and social anxiety? Has the accessibility of photography served to dilute its artistry? Is this affected by the contemporary culture of cataloguing life online? Well?

In this ever-updating age, questions rotate in a perpetual thought-storm like transient objects of wonder. We are barely granted the time to form an opinion before the Next Big Thing has flipped the industry on its head and it’s time to reassess contemporary culture again. But whichever side of the fence you find yourself on, it’s important to take a balanced approach.

In 1936 Walter Benjamin wrote, “In the age of mechanical reproduction, art gradually loses its traditional and ritualistic value.” This theory bridged two states of human progression and so two states of art. The dust had barely settled since the Industrial Revolution and the Second World War was about to provoke an accelerated fast-forward into the modern age. What, then, would Benjamin make of art and mechanical reproduction today and which party would he align himself with?

Andy Stonier of Howling Basset defines one school of thought, “I believe there's no real difference between digital and analogue photography in terms of photographic art. They're merely different techniques for capturing a scene. Whether the image created is on film or a CCD it matters little; what counts is the idea.”

And sure, there’s a lot of weight to this argument. Quality photography is dictated by a certain compassion and understanding of the subject, alongside an innovative idea that challenges social conceptions or embellishes a moment, not to mention composition and technical now-how.

The trouble is, quality photography can be achieved using both digital and analogue cameras, it’s just that one instrument is distinctly more convenient than the other. Long have photographers bemoaned the loss of romanticism and solitude that came hand-in-hand with a day in the dark room. And indeed, it just doesn’t feel quite as poetic to plug a camera into a laptop and fiddle with exposure on Photoshop. Rick Adam of Destroy Everything shares this second school of thought, citing the skill involved in analogue photography compared to the point-and-shoot culture that’s now encouraged by social networking, “You have to be a lot more resourceful when shooting film,” says Adam in an interview with Digg Magazine, “for one you shoot fewer photos, but in doing so I think you learn a lot more about composition, lighting, etc… Looking at the bigger picture it’s not hard to see that technological advancements have affected photography drastically. Digital cameras have given people the chance to take and upload images to the Internet instantaneously. These days it’s easy to take some photos, build a website and call yourself a photographer.”

So where’s the resolution? Does the accessibility of photography make it easier to feign a career in the industry or, to put it another way, if one can afford professional gear, does one become a professional photographer? No, say many, for the tools don’t make the photographer. A good photographer needs ‘the eye,’ and that cannot be bought or sold.

Personally, I think the medium is evolving, just as all art forms have evolved and continue to do. If that weren’t the case, we’d still be painting stoic portraits of monarchs or eroticising reclining nudes. I think our online sharing habits have promoted a rebirth of photography as art. Sure, some would argue that this has diluted its quality, but the same can be said for every creative outlet. The internet provides a platform of expression for everyone, whether they’re good or not. This is something that shouldn’t be chastised, it should be celebrated. After all, the cream will always rise to the top and whether a traditionalist likes it or not, digital post production has the power to transform a moment in time into a work of art.

To quote Tolstoy, “Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by those feelings and experiences them.”

So, tell us, do you think digital photography is disposable? Do you photograph with intent more with film versus digital?

Wes Kauffman is the President and Lead Technician at Perfect Image Camera, an independent camera repair center located in Lancaster, PA. Perfect Image has been providing professional camera repair service to the amateur, advanced amateur and professional photographic community for over 30 years.

“There are only two guarantees in life, Death and Taxes.” – Ben Franklin

I could not disagree more with the above statement. There are three guaranteed things in life. Death, taxes, and the fact that 90% of the lenses you buy will not focus properly on your camera. As a camera repair technician I am continuously hearing photographers complain about soft images. Either their lenses used to be sharp and now are not, or they just never performed up to their expectations. The truth is they are right, their lenses are not sharp, no matter how expensive, how new, or how well they take care of their lenses. Taking a camera and lens off the shelf, putting them together and getting perfectly sharp images is just not likely.

The reason is simple. Manufacturing relies on producing a high quality product, not a perfect product. Could Canon and Nikon produce perfectly matched cameras and lenses? Yes, but none of us could afford them. So in order to keep cost down they manufacture equipment to fall within “Allowable Tolerances”. In other words if a lens back focuses just a little, or a camera front focuses a tiny bit that is ok, because the amount of time and money it would take to get things perfect is just not worth it.

So, what’s a photographer to do? Thankfully the answer is really quite simple, Micro-Adjust (for the Canon lover), and AF Fine Tune (for all you Nikonians out there). Essentially what the manufacturers have come up with is a software solution. The process goes like this. We take a camera and lens that are having front or back focus issues, test them on an AF adjustment tool, enter the correct adjustment into the camera and voila we have a camera and lens combo that focus correctly. Now in real life it takes a little more work than that, but you get the idea. In my opinion the most practical and well thought out feature in newer DSLR’s is the AF Calibration feature. Very few technical advances have had such a profound impact on image quality as this one tool.

Now I’m going to be honest with you. Calibrating your camera is something you can do yourself, some of my customers do, and some of my customers try. The truth is a qualified repair tech can do it faster, and probably more accurately. They will have the correct tools and more importantly the experience. You also need to keep in mind that not all camera models have the AF Calibration feature built in. Here is a list of current cameras that can be calibrated.

Canon and Nikon

Sometimes calibration is not the answer to focus issues you might be having. Often times, (especially in Canon lenses) the USM (ultrasonic motor) unit in the lenses can go bad. If you have a Canon USM lens and the focus “seeks” (goes in and out without locking focus), or is very erratic (i.e. will back focus one moment and front focus the next) you need a repair not just a calibration. Nikon lenses don’t have the problem as frequently, but it still does occur. I always check a lens for these problems before I even begin the calibration process. If your lens does need repair please keep in mind that once the repair is complete it should still be calibrated with your camera.

So to wrap things up, your images are soft, guaranteed! Well 90% guaranteed anyway. Thankfully there is a solution and I can help you with it. Check out my website www.perfectimagerepair.com or click here to order your calibration service today.

Perfect Image is committed to being the solution to all your camera repair or professional sensor cleaning needs. Use the following code: “tiffinbox” and receive a $5 discount off of calibration or sensor cleaning from Perfect Image Camera.

This is Dr. Dhiraj Kacker's second guest blog post here. Read his first post on album manufacturing too. He is the CEO and co-founder of Canvera, an online digital photography company based in Bangalore, India. Dhiraj can be found online on Twitter, his company blog or his personal blog.

This post has been on my mind for a long time as I think a lot about the changing role of pro-photographers in the digital age. But in some ways I got beaten to the punch by a much more spunkier take on the issue by Allen Murabayash, CEO of Photoshelter, on his blog post “Rant: I Love Photography”. Please go read it. My post here will be much more sedate and boring! With that warning, let’s dive into it.

I have much more insight into the market where pros get hired for personal or corporate events (such as weddings, portraits, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc) so I will focus on that and not on commercial, editorial and stock photography which has its own set of dynamics in the digital world.

What do we all hear and say everyday: DSLRs are getting cheap, everyone has a camera, it’s getting tougher to earn a living being a pro! A lot of it is true. Digital Photography combined with the internet and cheaper and cheaper capture devices have made it simpler for all and sundry to take and share images like never before. Unshackled from the physical limitations of film and the cost of taking each picture everyone today can pretend to have some proficiency in photography. There are weekend wedding photographers who are taking business away from full time pros just based on price. There are pro-sumers who are building online galleries, showcasing their work and in fact selling their work.

But here’s the funny thing:

– For the first time in the history of pro-photography we have celebrity wedding photographers! Celebrity status was limited to fashion and editorial photographers, never to wedding photographers. How did this happen?

– Family portraits on the wall look like model shoots today, not just people saying cheese into a camera and accepting whatever came out. Perfect lighting, perfect smile are must!

– Corporate mug shots make management look like celebrities and anything lower quality doesn’t speak well of the company

– I am hearing more and more that right after a wedding date is fixed the first or second service provider that gets booked is the photographer; this used to be an afterthought

– Senior shoots are blurring the line between model portfolios and what was considered just pictures of the teenage years

– Parents want their kids’ sports pictures to look like shots from pro sports

– Never before have engagements & boudoir shoots been taking place in such large numbers. The smart photographers have also created the “trash the dress shoot” as well!

I don’t believe any of this was common a decade ago.

So what’s really going on? Let me talk a little from my personal experience. I had a run of the mill point and shoot film camera in the 90s and in 2000 bought my first 3MP digital camera – an Olympus 3000 for a $1000 (yes, a thousand bucks for a 3MP P&S camera). I remember the excitement of getting pictures back in the film world and just being able to relive those memories was amazing. At the time the pictures looked great but today, they look mediocre (and I am being generous). Too much sharpening, probably done by the minilab and too much contrast because of the film I bought. And of course I had no eye for composition or lighting. Initially I really liked my P&S digital camera – it was quite simply the excitement of digital. But my appreciation of photography kept going up and at some point that quality was just not good enough.

After my first kid was born, I finally invested in an SLR and for a few years managed with the default lens. And then I got fancier with the lens. It is safe to say that today with two young kids I shoot a lot of pictures, but here’s the kicker: unlike in the film world where I did not know any better, I can immediately tell how many decent shots I got. It takes me possibly 100 shots to get one really good one! I don’t have an eye for light or composition, and I rely on sheer volume to get lucky. So much so that on a recent birthday party I did the unthinkable: I called up a pro friend of mine to hire him to take pictures. By playing around a lot I have come to realize just how difficult it is to consistently take good shots. It is kind of like playing sports and developing a greater appreciation for the professional who plays the same sport. Isn’t it true that the omnipresence of little leagues and minors grows the business for the majors?

Here is what is happening: never before have average consumers been exposed to this much high quality imagery – web, mobile, magazines, hoardings, blogs – you name it. The quality of images on Pinterest or Tumblr is just mind blowing. Sub-consciously consumers have developed a greater appreciation for good images. Everything I’ve listed above is happening because of this trend. I believe that today consumers (like me) are experimenting a lot more with photography trying to reproduce the quality they observe. And like me they are coming to appreciate how difficult the art and craft of photography is. So when it comes to important life events (operative words being “important life events”), my prediction is that over the next decade pros will be hired in record numbers. Consumers will be spending in record amounts.

None of this means that things have not changed and pros can simply fall back to what they did in the 90s (which was essentially to build a physical portfolio and get referral business). Like a pro-sportsperson, they have to be savvy business people. I am writing on a photographer’s blog so I know that this audience is aware that from building a brand, to marketing to sales and operations, a pro has to do a lot more; a pro’s life has become lot more complicated. But boy, I don’t think there has ever been a greater appreciation for the art and craft of photography as it is today and I think we are at the start of a golden age of professional photography fueled by the omnipresence of images in our lives.

So, what do YOU think? Pen your thoughts below!

This guest post is by Dr. Dhiraj Kacker, CEO and co-founder of Canvera, an online digital photography company based in Bangalore, India. Dhiraj has numerous patents and publications to his name in the field of Digital Imaging. Dhiraj can be found online on twitter, his company blog or his personal blog.

With the advent of digital photography and the simultaneous rise of the Internet the entire photography landscape has been revamped in the last decade. This audience knows these changes quite well so I won’t dwell on all of them but rather I’ll focus my post on the technology and craft that goes behind a product that was spawned by this revolution: Photo Books.

I don’t know how many people actually sit back and think about it but it is quite remarkable that today we can actually get a single copy of a book printed at a reasonable price and turned around fairly fast. In the traditional book publishing world the economics just would not make sense unless there were at least say a 1000 copies of a book to be printed. There are many services that provide the ability to print one-off books:

a) Consumer grade photo books by companies such as Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodakgallery

b) Self publishing service providers such as Blurb, Amazon etc. that focus on generic publishing not just photo content

c) High-end photobook and album manufacturers such as Graphistudio, Asuka, Queensberry etc. that provide a much richer variety in covers, papers, finishing and other customizations. These are the favorites with professional photographers because they best showcase the work of a pro.

Canvera falls in the last category and we have slowly but surely added more and more options as we engaged with more photographers and understood their needs. There is however a constant tension between how many options we can offer versus producing a high quality output and keeping fast turnaround times. What makes this difficult is that there are many different pieces that have to come together in an exact sequence without requiring any one person or set of people to keep track.

Take for example a flush mount book with a custom cover and a personalized box with pictures. The inside of the book is printed on a silver halide machine and bound. The cover and the box wrap are printed on a wide-format printer (in Canvera’s case). The cover goes for separate finishing and then through barcodes is matched at a separate station with the book block and then bound together. The same happens with the custom box. Now there are complications in the process: the silver halide printer and wide-format printer have to be producing the same colors at all times, we can’t afford to have anyone trying to match colors on a book by book basis; individual sheets may have to get re-printed for a variety of reasons; QA may reject the finishing of one of the pieces and that may have to get re-done and matched back with the remaining finished pieces.

None of this is possible to do at scale without significant automation and technology. But adding options brings with it significant complexity as well. Even seemingly simple things such as adding more cover varieties, paper types or hot foil stamping fonts requires us to think through the full workflow: what equipment do we need, where will the raw materials be available on the production floor, how will quality analysis happen etc. We keep trying to push the envelope in adding choices (and at times have gotten burned!) but it is a balancing act.

At Canvera our driving philosophy behind everything we do is as follows:

a) 80% of what makes a good photo book or album is the photography! No matter how many digital photography touch-up tools have been created and how many effects one can do, the pressure on a pro to produce great pictures is as high as ever. In fact I’d argue that with an explosion in images fueled by the web and multitude of capture devices, consumers have subconsciously developed a greater appreciation of what makes a good picture.

b) Fast turnaround time matters a lot. Take the case of wedding photography: For the bride and groom 90% perfect pictures and album received within 10-15 days of the occasion are much more valuable than the absolute perfect set received 6 months after the event. At Canvera therefore, once we get an order we try to put it in the mail within 48 hrs.

c) Quality of printed products should be high and predictable. It is not good enough that the samples are great, but every single product produced every single time without requiring any special treatment should be produced at high quality.

With these driving principles, we focus more on turn-around-time and end-to-end workflow to ensure speed and quality while hopefully letting the photography do most of the talking. This does not mean that we don’t keep adding options, but we do try and think through the full implications first.

Here are things for you to consider when choosing a photo book or album company (beyond of course liking the samples):

1) What kind of front end tools (web or client based) do they provide to capture the order correctly? If there is complexity of choices in the order that the front end tools are not capturing and you are sending instructions over email/phone, chances are that mistakes will happen..

2) As the company grows, do they have processes in place to maintain their turn-around-times and quality at high volumes or are they better off as a low volume hand-made producer?

3) Do the variety of options on the books and albums lend themselves to more mistakes? Is the company ready to handle that much complexity?

4) What kind of color consistency is there in their production work flow?

As I said earlier, at Canvera we are taking the approach that first and foremost the photographs should do the talking. That’s key. And we as the photo book and album manufacturers should get out of the way by quickly turning around a high quality product with the right colors morning, evening or night, even if it means in the short term compromising a little on the variety we offer.

What do you think? How do you pick your photo book and album company? Do you agree/disagree with this thinking?

As a portrait and wedding photographer, it's awfully tempting to jump on the latest shining thing that comes along that claims to cut post-processing time down by a significant margin.

After all, what would you rather do, have the time to photograph or sit there in front of your machine for hours processing images? No one I know has opted to do the latter. It just wouldn't make sense to them. So, the search for that holy grail continues.

MY POST-PROCESSING WORKFLOW

My process after an event, be it a portrait session or a wedding, is to download my images off of my CF cards (for the curious, I use Sandisk 8gb Extreme III's). I cull my images in PhotoMechanic, as it allows me to quickly view my raw files and then I mark the ones I want to keep. The ones I edit out are moved into a different folder and out of sight. I then edit images in either Lightroom or Photoshop, depending on how many images there are in the “process” folder. Choices, choices. In the past, I would chug through a wedding with more 1500 images to edit. Lately, I have been thinking of sending them out to Colorati and having them tweak the images for me.

PRESETS FOR AND BY PHOTOGRAPHERS

There is however one other option. Yes, that bright and shiny thing I mentioned earlier on. It's called Visual Supply Company, or VSCO. If you use Nikon or Canon cameras and you shoot RAW files, your ears should perk up about now. Once you've imported your raw files into Lightroom or Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw, you are able to apply presets based on your camera's profiles. So Nikon users would use Nikon presets and Canon users would use Canon presets. A select number of Nikon and Canon cameras were used to test these presets to create custom profiles. From what I have been told, the company will continue to add more profiles as they are tested and as newer cameras come into the market. I personally like this progressive aspect of the company a lot. Here is the current list of cameras that have been profiled so far.

FIRST STEPS

From my experience with the presets (which I bought), I needed to have correctly exposed and white balanced images before beginning to work with the presets. So, that should be your first step (getting the exposure right in the camera) and then batch correcting the white-balance, if you have that option after you get home.

EMULATE THE LOOK OF FILM

I don't know about you, but I started out in photography using film. I have shot untold number of rolls of Kodak Tri-X and T-Max 3200. I miss the rich, textures that digital files have all but obliterated. Yes, in the words of Jonathan Canlas or Kirk Mastin (both awesome film-only photographers), I could pick up a film camera again instead of making a digital file look like film. They have a point. Yes, I could do that. But VSCO gives me the opportunity to emulate the look of film without the added expense of working in that wonderful medium. For me, it's really the best of both worlds.

BLACK & WHITE EXAMPLE

>Straight Out Of Camera, or SOOC

>First Tweak – Just Clicked on the TriX-400++ Preset

>Second Tweak – Used the Vignette++ Preset

>Third Tweak – Used the Dark Skies+ Preset (notice how the t-shirt in this is darker?)

So, in three clicks, I arrived at what I consider to be an acceptable final image, ready to be shared with my clients. The images will definitely go through another round of tweaks, in Photoshop if the clients were to order this image.

COLOR EXAMPLE

>Straight Out Of Camera, or SOOC

>First Tweak – Clicked on the Kodak Portra and Contrast++ presets

>Second Tweak – With the above image being a little “hot” in the highlights, I used the “recovery” slider to bring back some highlight detail.

>The Final Image – Took this image into Photoshop and used brushes to smoothen out natural blemishes, bring some light back into the eyes and sharpen the image up.

For both sets of images, I used the Visual Supply Company Studio Version. I also processed the images in ACR. With the processing engines the same in both ACR and LR, sometimes it is more convenient to fire up ACR (for a small set of images) versus Lightroom (which I use for image sets that are 100 or more). Wanting to emulate the film look, I was more enamored by the way VSCO's Film helped me produce black and white images. In fact, I might use this almost exclusively to create black & white prints for my clients.

IS THIS FOR EVERYONE?

In one quick answer, no. It's not. I would recommend you look at your needs first. Figure out whether your clients (if you are a professional) would not just see but also appreciate the look you will be producing for them. If you are an amateur or hobbyist, just looking to create images with a different look, these presets will help you achieve that. Let me put to you even more simply – if you are inclined to produce images that you want people to merely look at, then you should pass on this. However, if you are the type of photographer who wants your viewers to dip into a well of emotion and feel the image, then you should definitely buy these now.

THE SWEET DEAL THAT ENDS ON NOVEMBER 29th!

Until Monday night (that's tomorrow night), you can get the Standard, Pro and Studio versions for quite a bit off of their regular prices. I bought the Studio version as it includes both the Lightroom and ACR options for both Nikon and Canon cameras. In the event I work with a photographer who shoots with a Canon system, I can now very easily tweak her/his images as well. If your business is primarily shooting portraits, I would nudge you more towards the Pro version.

From Visual Supply Company's Twitter feed:

“All prices will increase after Monday at midnight PST #VSCOFILM. Standard $59 will be $79, Pro $99 will be $119 & Studio $179 will be $199.”

STILL NOT CONVINCED?

You should also read John Keatley's review of Visual Supply Company's Presets. And Jonas Peterson's review too. Just look at the images they have on display.

SHARE YOUR IMAGES

If you bought the Visual Supply Company presets, please share your images with me and tell me in the comments sections below which presets you liked the most. Do you use other

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