One of the popular spots in San Jose is this complex called Santana Row. It’s an upscale shopping mall and apartment complex located near Campbell. The architecture is beautiful, the restaurants are great, and the rent there is expensive. As it’s a great place to live in for young people, several San Jose Sharks and San Francisco 49ers players live there. It’s a fun area to hang out at, and I thought it would be a good place for some photography.

It turns out it’s not. Photography in Santana Row is not allowed, according to the security guard who approached me shortly after I pulled out my camera to take some pictures of this wall of color in one of the alleys (pictured above). He stated that it’s a private property, which is it is, and that the management of Santana Row insisted that no pictures of the exterior should be taken.

I respect their rights and I stopped taking pictures without too much arguing. The whole property is private, including the sidewalks.

But what a stupid decision by the management.

Why is that a crime to take photos there, especially since the owners spent so much money on architecture of the place? What evil will my pictures do to their business that I shouldn’t be taking them?

But one thing is certain. After that experience, I’m not spending a single dollar at Santana Row.

Yesterday I received a new DVD of Lenswork Extended in the mail and it sparked a new idea about how to get more out of my digital SLR and turn it into a large format camera. Issue #87 features portfolio of architecture photography by Scott Hendershot. I have not yet listened to the interview recorded on the DVD, but I did take a look through his portfolio and also through his web-site. I was left both impressed and excited about the new way of shooting I am going to try in the next few weeks.

The portfolio that Scott presents in the issue of Lenswork has been shot over a span of 20+ years, but it’s hard to tell the difference between the shots taken with large format cameras back in the day, and with digital cameras of today. The reason for that is that when the new digital era came along, Scott decided to embrace it, but he wanted his style and the quality of his work to stay the same. Today’s digital cameras do not have the same dynamic range as medium and large format cameras, nor resolution.

What Scott does to compensate for that are two things that I found interesting – (1) he takes as much information as he can for the scene by bracketing his exposures three times, (2) he takes 9 pictures of the same scene to expand the resolution of the final image. In other words, he takes 27 shots of one scene, and then blends the exposures to expand the dynamic range, and also creates a composite panorama photo that rivals the resolution of a large format camera.

I took a similar approach to one shot when I was in Yosemite last week, where I took 17 shots of the same scene and then created a composite that turned out to be 96 megapixels wide. I’ll post my results later this week. What I’ve learned with that experiment  is that with higher resolution, the quality of the image increases overall, no matter what size we’re looking at. The more detail camera captures, the sharper the photo is to begin with.

This approach to photography only works with still subjects, and I have no desire to try it on a beach when taking a picture of moving waves and clouds. This approach will also never work on my 2 year old, who can’t sit still for a single frame, let alone 27.  But when it comes to architecture and still life – I think this method is worth experimenting with, and I’ll do some more testing in the future.

To see more work by Scott, click here. He also has an article on that technique here.

The lives of creative people are all pretty similar.  For example, any photographer can learn a great deal about the craft from studying the work and lives of painters and other kinds of artists. With that in mind, I found myself recently reading the books on writing. Reading these books allows me to accomplish two things at the same time – I am learning how to become a better writer, and I am also learning about how to improve my creativity, because the principles of creativity involved are essentially the same.

One of the books I’ve been reading is a classic by William Zinsser, On Writing Well. In a chapter on finding one’s own style, the author talks about how writers often find themselves in a creative rut, as they begin working on a project. As photographers, we can certainly relate to the following words:

Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being examined for a hernia, and as for confidence, see how stiffly he sits, glaring at the screen that awaits his words. See how often he gets up to look for something to eat or drink. A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing. I can testify from my newspaper days that the number of trips to the cooler per reporter-hour far exceeds the body’s need for fluids.

What can be done to put the writer out of these miseries? Unfortunately, no cure has been found. I can only offer the consoling thought that you are not alone. Some days will go better than others. Some will go so badly that you’ll despair of ever writing again. We have all had many of those days and will have many more.

In the past few years since I started doing photography, I can’t tell you how many times I felt like giving up and selling all my camera equipment. Sometimes I think about at an assignment or a project I decided I need to do, and there is no energy to begin. Other times, I simply don’t want to do anything related to photography because I feel no inspiration whatsoever.

I do think there is a cure – at least for photographers.

Nothing cures the creative rut better than actually getting the camera out and taking pictures. Sometimes I just start taking pictures of something in my backyard, or of my kids – and all of a sudden, the ideas begin flowing back again. Nothing can beat that in my experience.

But the bottom line here is that if you feel stressed or lack ideas or energy, it’s nothing to be too afraid of. It happens to all creative people.

It’s that time of the year again, and I have some tips for you if you’re a part time photographer wanting to minimize your taxes..

I’m glad to say I filed my taxes last weekend. It took me several days to put everything together, but it’s good to be done and start worrying about another year. As a reminder, here are couple of articles I wrote last year that may help you with your taxes for 2009 and maybe even 2010 if you plan ahead. I updated those articles recently, and I hope you find them useful. Again, feel free to leave a comment to these articles if you have a tax question, of send me an email and I’ll be happy to help.

Tax Tips for Part-Time Photographers

Sales Tax Tips For Photographers in California

It’s one of the busiest times of the year for me in my non-photography related endeavors, but I’ll try to share something at least once a week to keep my mind sane and somewhat guilt-free. Why is it that January is the most popular time to break the new year’s resolution?

In case you missed it, I wanted to let you know that one of my favorite landscape photographers Don Smith recently published another ebook, Refined Vision, 50 Lessons Designed to Improve Your Digital Landscape Photography, this time it’s available both in PDF and print version via Blurb. I wrote earlier about Don’s book on Big Sur, and this time he published a book that has slightly different content and contains his advice to those who love shooting landscape photography.

Here is what I loved about the book.

First, I’ve read many books on landscape photography in an effort to educate myself. They are typically targeted towards beginners, and cover such topics as why one should be shooting with a tripod, how to get a good exposure, and how to handle color. Usually, you read one, you’ve read them all. Don’s book goes a step further and includes various topics typically not covered in this book, such as how to measure perspective, how to space elements, how to choose foreground or how to get the best shots at night (his chapter on shooting moonbows is worth the price you’ll pay for the book alone). Don also spends some time sharing how his creative thoughts work in the field, as well as his workflow from shooting to print.

Second, the book provides a good balance of text and photos. It is 161 pages long, and includes a great collection of outstanding landscape images. On top of that however, the pages of the book are full of good text, and the advice that Don typically shares with his student during his workshops. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of text, because this is where in my mind the book is the most valuable.

Third, Don designed a book in a way that each lessons builds off each other. This is a logical way to present them and makes the flow of his vision easy to follow and easy to read.

To read more about the book or purchase your copy, please visit Don’s site.

The year barely started, and I’m already slacking on one of my resolutions. Human nature, I suppose.

Thanks to all those who contributed to my “Best of 2009″ post and shared their thoughts on which shot they liked the best. Now that I got 2009 behind me, it’s time to look into 2010, and set some specific photography-related goals and decide where I want to be a year from now. I’ve got a bunch, and I don’t want to share all of them, but I’ll share a few main ones. It’ll be good to look back at these goals at the end of the year and see how much has been accomplished. Here are few of the things I’d like to accomplish this year, in a random order.

1. Reorganize and redesign my portfolio web-site. I was going to finally select a new web-site platform and create an online portfolio, but just a couple of days ago I learned that Zenfolio, the service I use to sell my prints, has undergone a major upgrade, and I think now has all I need to get the job done.
2. Build portfolio in three areas – landscape/nature, architecture and abstract. I am going to stay more focused on these subjects this year, as year develops and my goal is to have 20 images in each section that I am happy with. Last year I’ve shot all kinds of types of photography. This year I’ll specialize more.
3. Complete a photo essay. I’d like to complete a photo project that will be good enough for a photos essay consisting of 10-15 images. I have several ideas in mind what that will be.
4. Write a new blog post every week. I think writing about photography is a good way to improve. Photography as a medium is hard topic to write about, but my goal would be to write a substantive post once a week.
5. Grow my photography business. I’d like to shoot more assignments, I’d like to sell more prints, I’d like to have larger presence online and I’d like to be profitable this year.

All these goals have a long list of to-do items as I brainstorm, but as I write the ideas down, it makes me look forward to the upcoming year and where I’ll take my photography.

If you have a moment, check out an interview I did with guys at Caliber SF, new blog with San Francisco street and documentary theme that a group of photographers recently launched. They’ve interviewed me about my photography, about how I learn and how I keep myself motivated and about a couple of my favorite shots. Please make a jump here.

On a personal note, if you are not yet reading that blog on regular basis, you should. The pictures and passion of these guys are captivating and motivating for me. I visit their blog regularly – when it comes to San Francisco, these guys capture its true spirit. I was able to shoot with Troy Holden and Stuart Dixon on several occassions, and it’s been a blast.

If you need a little boost to your creativity, here are few links that may help.

– Chase Jarvis shares 22 ideas of how to shake your tree. Some of the ideas could easily apply to other areas in life;
– An instant classic – Zach Arias video – if you haven’t seen it yet, you are by all definitions missing out and if you already have seen it, watch it again;
– Rose Smith offers plenty of good advice and tips on her blog;
– Recent issue of Lenswork (my favorite photo magazine among those I subscribe to) just came out and the editorial piece by Brooks Jensen is about 10 ideas on how to jump start your creativity. If you’re not a subscriber, stop by your local bookstore and read the essay – well worth your time;
– 92 examples of creative photographs;
– Giving Yourself a Photo Assignment, by Scott Kelby.

I debated for a while whether I should include this one or not as part of my portfolio, since it’s pretty much just a family shot, but I thought I would anyway, as this shot is one of a kind in my collection.

Those of us who are parents can appreciate how hard it is to catch an infant (Maks was still just 6 months in this shot) at the top of his smile, looking directly at the camera. In fact, it’s almost impossible. I took several thousands of photos of Maks since he was born 20 months ago, but this is the only one I have where he is smiling with his whole face while directly interacting with the camera. I’ve taken thousands of shots of other toddlers as well for our friends and family, and still, no luck to catch an expression like this.

Many will look at the picture, and think – it’s just a family snapshot that should remain in a photo album. To them I say, go out and try to take a shot like this of a kid that age before you say it’s a piece of cake job.

The way our brain works is that we remember the extremes. When I think of Maks, I think of him laughing his head off, or smiling. Just like he does in this picture, and perhaps this still image is how I will remember his childhood.