RECENT DESIGN ACTIVITY

Designers need to know the basics of photography

There will be those projects which will require of you to properly advertise the product for your customer. Doing a Point-n-Shoot procedure will not pass for an effective advertising solution.  Which is why part of every day design knowledge should be your ability to photograph.

 You may say to me,

I purchase all my photography from the popular photo banks, and those photographs are mighty solid, certainly much better than what I can do.

  I do the same when a certain photo fits the design, but not every design can include a general photograph of some nice piece work, that is where your personal photography comes in. Design projects such as depicting your clients building or product, requires your ability to photograph.   There are some clients who will carry photographs of their works which they would like you to use in their design, a lot of them I found to be garbage, and thats when I recommend to retake the photographs myself.  If you, as a designer, have an eye for cheap vs. quality photography you could be in better relations with your clients.  Designing for products, architecture, interior, special moments, etc… requires your ability to properly capture the subject. 

 Well then….In your arsenal you should carry a nice professional camera.  Get ready to spend at least $2000 for a camera and necessary accessories.  Necessary accessories include, at least two types of lenses; close-up lense and a wide angle lense.  Also a flash unit, and a tripod.  This investment will greatly help you appreciate the design business to the fullest.  Point-and-shoot cameras will not do when your subjects require special settings.  99% of the time you would be shooting in Manual mode; you would be required to adjust the settings of the camera to capture the subject.  So take a week off and go into the wild to learn your new piece of equipment. 

There are lots of good professional cameras, the two I would recommend as a starting point is Nikon D200  or Canon 30D.  Canon is appreciated if you would be shooting in low light or shooting fast paced action.  Where as Nikon is better suited for still photography and gets better performance in the field as well as better ergonomically built.  Both Manufacturers will give you outstanding results as long as you know what you are doing.  Since there are many Canon and Nikon worshippers out there, please take my opinion with a grain of salt

A lot of designers may fall into a trap after using their new shiny camera; all of a sudden after 10 hours of shooting they think they have become pro photographers (the pics turn out truly amazing).  Some may even start advertising themselves as professional photographers.  Please just stick to what you bought your camera for and let photographers whose job is to take pictures of kids and weddings, do their job.  You certainly don’t want to over-broaden your business and then find out one morning that people no longer know which business are you running. 

 I will discuss strictly the tactics of photographing objects or architecture in the next article so come back soon because there are certains basics you should know to clear off the clouds.  In this blog I share strictly my own experieces and challenges I was able to overcome by making this or that decision.

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