Free Photos – Bull Elk Photo

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Why Your Photography Business is Not a Non-Profit

Bull Elk bugling, Jasper National Park, Canada.
Bull Elk bugling, Jasper National Park, Canada.

I had another photo request for free use of my images today; they come in pretty regularly, it seems, particularly for wildlife and landscape photography. We nature lovers obviously love what we do, and so must have a desire to give our work away for free. How can we not?

I’ll be the first to admit it folks; these are tough times, for buyers and sellers alike.

There’s no denying that truth. I thought I’d try to find some kind of compromise here. I always like to develop a relationship with someone who may potentially pay for my work, and I also wanted to help these people out – theirs is a just and worthwhile cause. And hey, maybe helping these folks out might provide the impetus for some real economic activity in the world?

I hoped to do my bit to help the economy get rolling, my own little stimulus plan, if you will (I still can’t believe the government got away with labeling theirs a ‘stimulus package‘). At the same time, I didn’t really want to give away my work for free. What to do?

The ‘stimulus plan’ for free photo requests

I tried to explain to the person on the phone; I listened closely, and sympathized – “yes, I realize you’re a non-profit organization, but  my business, on the other hand, is NOT a non-profit“. This didn’t clarify things, apparently.

A different tact:  “Well, you see, my rent doesn’t go down according to the charity work that your business does, and the food I eat doesn’t become free simply because I did a good deed for the day“. We got nowhere.

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Moraine Lake Hiking

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Tourist watching people canoeing on Moraine Lake, Banff, Canada.
A tourist hiker stands beside the shores of Moraine Lake and watches people canoeing on the lake The grand scenery of Moraine Lake and the Wenkchemna Peaks, or 10 Peaks at Moraine Lake make the area a popular tourist destination for hiking, canoeing, photography and adventures. Hiker, Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Click the image to see how good I look in red.

hey Folks

I was scanning through some images recently and stumbled on to this one. Here’s me in stunning mauve at Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, in Alberta Canada.

Most photographers know how much difference putting a person or 2 in the photo can make to the salability of an image. And adding some color makes a difference as well.

But the image must tell a story. For stock photography, the more generic the story might be, the more possible different uses it might have. This could be a tourist, a hiker, someone lost, a photographer, etc. It could even be someone advertising Arcteryx jackets.

But the real story of this photo, for me, is my first time to Moraine Lake. I spend a whole day just soaking up the grandeur of this place. I can think of very few places that are so simply pretty as the Canadian Rockies. They’re almost picture perfect. Many other places have a wonder all their own, and I’d never forsake the wildness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, for example, for the Canadian Rockies. But for sheer ‘hop out of the car and be amazed’ classical mountain beauty, the Canadian Rockies have it going on.

I’d been to Jasper National Park a few times, photographing wildlife there. I’d driven through Banff in order to get to Jasper. And I’d thought to myself ‘wow, Banff is pretty’ more than once. But the first time I drive up to Moraine Lake, got out the car and walked over to the lake, it just floored me. I walked along the lake’s edge, and sat and stared at everything. At the detail or these incredible peaks above me, the silence of the montane forest, and that water. That amazing water. It just absolutely blew me away.

They day was cloudy, it was early in the summer, and few people were around; those that were had taken rental canoes out on the lake, and I had the shoreline pretty much to myself. So I just sat and soaked it in. If you ever go to Banff National Park, and I recommend that you do, at least once in your life, give yourself plenty of time up at Moraine Lake. It takes time just to see it – you can’t stand at the overlook, glance around, and see it all. give yourself a day, and embrace the place. Your life will be richer for it.

More photos of Banff National Park.

Cheers

Carl

Brown Bear Photos, Katmai National Park, Alaska

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Grizzly bear walking in a salmon River, Katmai National Park, Alaska.
A young brown bear (Ursus arctos) walks through a stream hunting for spawning Sockeye Salmon. Grizzly bear, or coastal brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey folks

Won’t be long until the bears are running around the woods again!!!

I’ll be in the woods for the coming week, but I thought I’d post a brown bear photo, and schedule a couple of other blog posts for while I’m gone.

Catching this young blonde colored brown bear in some nice light was quite a treat. That’s the benefit of spending time in the field. Most wildlife photography, it seems, is done in places where the subject is pretty much a given; places like Homer for bald eagles, Yellowstone for elk, Churchill for polar bears, and Katmai National Park and Preserve for grizzly bears, or brown bears.

So what makes the difference?

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Birds of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

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Male Pine Grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator) perched on a spruce tree, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
A male Pine Grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator), perched on a small spruce tree in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo I took last spring of a male Pine Grosbeak in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I had set up a couple of feeders around the Shack and these gorgeous birds would come in every day and have a good ole time.

Other regular visitors to the buffet were Black-capped and Boreal Chickadees, Common Redpolls, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Gray Jays and, of course, the effervescent Red Squirrel. Ravens came by, from time to time, but rarely dropped down to the feeder.  

The Pine Grosbeaks were my favorite though.

The grosbeaks are actually a finch, the largest of the boreal finches. A group of these birds together is called, wait for it, a ‘gross’ of grosbeaks. They’re such a cool bird, and very tolerant of my puttering around the cabin; they’d generally ignore my comings and goings.

I grabbed a small white spruce sapling that some snow-machiners had run over and destroyed, and used it to set up the perch. For a background I hung a fleece blanket up and positioned it for a nice clean background. It’s a little bit ‘contrived’, but hopefully it works OK.

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The art of nature

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Silhouette of a bald eagle, Kachemak Bay, Homer, Alaska.
A bald eagle headshot, silhouetted against a glowing sunset, Kachemak Bay, Homer, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I read a great blog on art yesterday, by Paul Grecian. The subject was a play on the aural equivalent of the old adage, ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it does it make a sound’. Paul takes the viewpoint that art is a human pursuit, and exists only when it has a human audience. “If there is no human to perceive it and translate the experience into an emotion, then there is no art” – I’m not so sure I subscribe to that idea, for a number of reasons.

I think art is a verb; art is something we do. The results of that process might be nice to look at, or not, or nice to listen to, but the essence of art is creating. The act of creating is where art lies, not the products of that process. And we are not at all the sole creators. An American Tree Sparrow calling the tune of the alpine country is as artful as Joshua Bell playing a Beethoven concerto. The dance of the Japanese Red Crowned Crane is glorious. A Bower bird’s building her nest? The song of the wolf pack over the frozen night air is as spell-binding as Aretha or Stevie on a good day, no? What distinguishes human art from the performances of our fellow creatures, other than our own ability (and endeavours) to relate to it?

Art is essentially play.

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A Big Month for Skolai Pass Photos

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Sunset over Skolai Pass, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Skolai Pass, the north end; Sunset over Skolai Pass, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Skolai Pass has rocked into March 2010. This month’s edition of backpacker magazine, which I wrote about earlier, has a full page image of mine from Hole in the Wall, accompanying an article about hiking the Goat Trail.

And this month’s edition of Popular Photography includes another photo from Skolai Pass by photographer Doug Roane, taken on one of last year’s Skolai Pass Photo Tours. Check out a large version of Doug’s amazing photo here. Better yet, take 15 minutes and browse the collection of images on Doug’s website. Awesome stuff!

Falls overlooking Skolai Pass and Russell Glacier - Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, AK
Skolai Pass, the south end; Waterfalls overlooking Skolai Pass and Russell Glacier – Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, AK. For a gorgeous larger version, visit Doug’s website at www.dougroanephotography.com

Doug’s photo was voted 2nd place in the March “Your Best Shot” competition. Huge congratulations Doug, a recognition well-earned.

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Manufactured Landscapes – a film review.

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Colorful duplex and garden, Orsono, Chile.

Colorful duplex and garden, Orsono, Chile. Please click the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

I’m depressed. I just watched “Manufactured Landscapes”, (2006) and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do. It’s a pretty intense documentary, featuring amazing photography by Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky creates some powerful imagery of some of the most unlikely subjects – largely industrial wasteland. Coal mines, dams, factories (the opening shot shows the inside of a factory over three quarters of a kilometer long), parking lots, construction sites, destruction sites, you name it. It’s compelling stuff – the beauty in his photos is moving, yet discomforting. The reality he brings to the viewer is a bit overwhelming; this stuff IS our world, today.

The film is set in China, largely, though the narration points out that this industrial development is global; almost all of the products being pieced together in factories throughout China consist of raw materials shipped in from around the globe, then shipped back off to meet demand overseas. The stark reality here is that China’s environmental problem is our problem; insatiable demand from the “developed” world is altering not just the landscape, but the land itself. Continue reading →

The Baker River and Bob Marley

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Waterfalls, Baker River, Rio Baker, Patagonia, Chile.
Waterfalls, Baker River, Rio Baker, Patagonia, Chile. Click the thumbnail to see a larger version.

Hey Folks

“How many rivers do we have to cross, Before we can talk to the boss, eh?” – Bob Marley, “Burnin and Lootin'”.

Today, Feb 6th, 2010, is the 65th anniversary of Bob Marley’s birthday. Bob is one of my highest musical heroes, and this tune, of all his great songs, is probably the one that I love the most. So, in honor of the great Bob Marley, go a listen to his classic ‘Redemption Song‘ that I recorded a few years back with my friend Steve on vocals.

I thought this photo would be a fitting accompaniment. This photo is of the waterfall on the Baker River, beginning of a series of Class 5 and Class 6 rapids through an unbelievable canyon.

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Photo sale to the CIA

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Winter snowshoeing, boreal forest, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Winter snowshoeing, boreal forest, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

All photo sales are unique, but this one was pretty weird. My phone rings around 5:30am, I kinda half open my eyes, clasp for the phone, miss, knock it off the table beside my bed, try to catch it, bang my head on the guitar standing against the wall, drop the phone, and it crashes to the floor. My go-to response in this situation is pretty simple; I curse. It’s a sin, I know, but it’s a hard habit to break. So I curse again, and then pick up the phone.

Surprisingly, the person on the other end of the phone is still there. I gurgle a quick greeting;

“hello, this is Carl.”

“hello, this is special agent ——– ………. “

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Blogs, Social Media, Tweets and Gibberish

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Caribou herd on the coastal plain, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.
Caribou herd feeding on the coastal plain, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Click the thumbnail for a larger, more epic, version.

Hey Folks

Recently I read a photographer ask the following question:

Now I know that blogging gets your profile closer to the top of the heap and web traffic will probably go up. The question is have any of you actually seen a raise in the amount of sales as a result? Is it all worth the amount of time that it takes to do all this stuff?

Now, I hope the photographer doesn’t mind me mentioning his name, but I only do so because this guy is a total BAD-ASS. Readers, meet Mr Adam Gibbs. Adam is an amazing photographer, and I don’t mean ‘amazing’ like ‘oh yeah, cool’ – I mean like his images are simply gorgeous. If this photo doesn’t make you cry, you’re computer is broke. If this photo doesn’t move you, it’s time for you to retire from your position as CEO of Exxon-Mobil, Mr Tillerson.

Anyway, the discussion that ensued revolved, as suspected, around blogging, facebooking, tweeting, etc, etc. Is it “worth it”?

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