Bee Part of It!

The BBC in the UK is about to launch a project called Bee Part Of It, to help raise awareness of the plight of the UK bees and encourage people to help through education and the planting of 40,000 new bee-friendly spaces.

They're working with the National Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, various bee organizations and the project is supported by the award winning BBC2 television wildlife series Springwatch.

One of the things they're doing to help people engage is to run a Bee Part Of It group on Flickr to help aggregate bee collections from across Flickr and encourage people to submit new work to showcase these amazing insects where they live.

I've already agreed to help with the project in any way that I can, and I encourage you all to do the same!

Building Mason Bee Homes

You might recognize a few of the images in this video produced by Greg Peterson :)

Set a Baseline

Slurp VII
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

Once you reach a point where you can make an honest analysis of your work then set a baseline for yourself. Take your best image (you can use more than one), and set it as the wallpaper on your computer (phone, PDA, etc.) and when you see it take the time to pick it apart. Look for ways that you could make it better, and then try to apply those changes to all of your future images (if possible). The goal isn't to re-shoot the exact same scene, but to find and fix mistakes that you might be repeating.

Once you take a better photo then set it as your wallpaper and start the process over again. The image included with this post is my current baseline. It's sure to change, but I may not come back and update this post.

Remember that you need to take the feedback that you're getting from other photographers with a grain of salt -both good and bad. If you start believing all of the positive things that people tell you then you might stop improving, and if you can evaluate your own work then no one should be pointing out mistakes that you're not seeing...

Extreme Macro -the Art of Patience

Sleeping Mason Bee
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

I recently finished my first book, Extreme Macro -the Art of Patience, and it's a coffee table book with some of my best images from 2009 as well as tips on how to shoot insects at high magnification.

Writing a book is something that I've wanted to do for a while, and I plan on getting into a regular schedule of photography through the year with a new book in the winter. I have a few ideas for the next one, but haven't settled on a single theme yet. If there is anything you'd like to see in the 2010 / 2011 edition then please let me know in the comments.

Macro Photographer of the Year

I've been selected by Digital Photographer Magazine as their Macro Photographer of the Year for 2009. I could only enter one image for the contest, the feeding bee that I've included with this post.

Considering the level of the photographers that entered the competition, and that have galleries on the Digital Photographer web site, I'm honored to have won!

The Photography 401 Scam

From an email I received a while back:

"Greetings,

I'm Eric and I'm an art director in an independent agency here in Dubai, U.A.E.

I have seen some of your works here in devianart and I think they're great!

You see, we are currently working on a calendar for 2010 and we're featuring MACRO PHOTOGRAPHS with interesting colors and unexpected details of ordinary everyday objects ( or animals and humans maybe ).

I'm just wondering if you would like to be featured in this 2010 calendar.

I'll be honest with you though, We are on a very strict budget, which is basically none.

If you decide to agree, All we can offer you is your work being seen throughout the whole year in a lot of desks all over the world.

I cannot tell you which company we are doing this for at the moment because it's confidential at this point.
But we will give you a copy of the finished calendar design in pdf format before we send it out so you could see it first.

If you can reply to this asap, like now....that would be great!!

I'll be waiting for your favorable reply

Thanks and have a great day!"

So the art director gets paid, and the folks who print and distribute the calendar get paid, but the guy who took the photos (the poor SOB who's the reason why people are buying the calendar in the first place) doesn't get paid?! I sent the email to Tom Stack and Associates (Tom handles my portfolio) and I never heard from Eric again. There are so many people out there who are willing to fall for this "I can't afford to pay you even though I'm making out like a bandit" scam that they'll keep trying until they find someone who is willing to trade their work for a photo credit, and it's the reason why there's no money in photography anymore...

Footnote: The reason why the scam works is that people get all excited when someone contacts them for images. They think that because someone is asking for their work then that must mean that their photos are really good, and getting them published is a form of validation. What the photographer doesn't realize is that the publisher is phishing for people who will agree to give away their images for nothing but a photo credit -Eric's email is a prime example. He didn't know what direction he was going to take the calendar because he didn't know who would agree to give away their work. He'd just keep trying until someone said yes and then he'd use their images to develop the theme of the calendar. Target enough people and eventually you'll find someone who's willing to say yes -it's the same reason why the Nigerian 401 scams work. If the technique wasn't successful then it wouldn't be used.

Trust me when I tell you that if someone wants to use your specific images then they will pay you for them...

Ladybug Field of View

A really cool directx 11 rendering of a ladybug and its environment!