A recent article in the New York Times practically proclaimed the death of traditional professional photography. (The New York Times, March 29, 2010, “For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path”, Stephanie Clifford)

First, I felt offended as I scanned the paragraphs. Then, I decided not to participate in that pessimistic frame of thought.

The story said, “There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting.” And, “Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets… are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options.”

Hmmm… true, true! Perhaps this is because the amateurs are keeping up with trends and technology better than many stiff-shirt, inflexible professionals. Hellllloooo…. the world is changing, and photography is changing along with most other crafts and arts. We all love iTunes, right? Wrong! The recording companies hated it. They lost money and had to scale back on out-dated, and obsolete methods. They were forced to adapt, and many of the forward-thinking will survive.

Look at other media industries which have gone through fundamental transformations:
Book Publishing — books now available as downloads and “print-on-demand”

Newspapers and magazines — now competing with free internet news

Motion Pictures and Hollywood — now a cheap and fast download

Television Networks — who even watches any more? Better content is faster and free on-line.

Art — It seems like only yesterday that Andy Warhol was catching hell for painting “Campbell’s Soup Cans” so photo-realistically (1962). Now we can turn a photograph into painter-realistic!

Industries change, and the individuals who are most successful and profitable are those who adapt fastest to current trends and technologies. So as photographers we all have reason to embrace the current trends. The world is at our fingertips! We can now grab a camera and, with some basic computer skills, produce virtually any image that we can imagine in our own mind. We used to be limited by physical characteristics of film and cameras, but this is no longer the case. Our own creativity is the only limit. Today’s modern professional photographer has powerful tools that would boggle the mind just a decade ago.

Ahhh, and so do the amateurs…… which is why some pros are feeling threatened.

Today’s professional photographers can continue to pay the bills; feed the family; find internal satisfaction; live an enviable lifestyle, and retire with a smile. Likewise, amateurs can earn extra money; have a blast; and continue to push us pros as they have done for the past few decades. So what is the issue? This is just a normal shake-up in an industry which was thrust completely and quickly into the digital age. Professional photography will not die — we pros will just continue to find new leaders, artists, teachers, and heros, as we keep a close eye on the amateurs who will push us to create new images and greater accomplishments.

Photography has been given a breath of new life — and for this I am thankful.

Hmmm. I am still trying to figure out the new brush tools in Photoshop CS5 . I have to admit, this is a real fun challenge! Techniques like this will evolve nicely into the portrait industry, I think.

I still have two spots left in my June 14th-20th Boot Camp!

In the exciting world of retail art photography, a photographer has to keep on evolving; keep on experimenting; keep on creating new looks.

Like most serious photographers, I have a truckload of old images that are really top quality, but which needed to be given a breath of new life. For ten years now I have been trying to paint my images manually, one way or another. I tried it with a paintbrush and acrylics at first. Then I tried painting oils on to my fiber darkroom prints. Finally I tried watercolor paints mixed with colored pencils. I had limited success, and ruined a lot of prints.

I have tried a couple of digital painting programs lately, and found them a bit difficult to understand. The instruction manuals still sit in a stack on my special desk, which is dedicated to unfinished projects.

As a tester for the new Adobe Photoshop CS5, I started toying around with the new mixing brush tool. You’ll find it hidden under the paint brush tool. I love it! It is pretty understandable for those artists who already have a basic grasp of Photoshop. The image below was painted relatively simply, using just two different brushes on a single layer. Boy, I am really excited to dig further into the “wet brush” settings and develop a line that will really catch some attention when printed on large stretched canvases.

This image is of a champion hula dancer named Haunani. If you have ever wanted to photograph real hula on the beach in Hawai’i, you can join me and Rick Sammon, and Juan Pons, and a dozen other pros at the Maui Photo Festival in August! Rumor has it that the famous Adobe Photoshop Evangelist Russell Preston Brown will show up again this year to give us the inside scoop on CS5.  There is nothing better than shooting a digital camera while standing barefoot in the white, tropical sands of Maui!

If you are looking for a workshop even more intimate, then check out my Tropical Island Boot Camp for Creative Photography. Russell Brown and I will spend an adventure-packed week exploring the secret spots all around the island. This will max out at 10 students,. i have two openings left at this moment. Email me for more information!

Aloha,

Randy

Oh the shame.

I know it would seem unfaithful for me to ignore my own blog in order to post photo tips on a much bigger blog…. but I have been doing that for the past couple months. Cheating on myself! The other blog is called the Digital Photography Experience, or DP Experience, for short

I was invited by internationally known photographers/instructors Rick Sammon, and Juan Pons to become a part of their growing blog community — with about 15,000 daily readers. I was whooed and honored at the prospect of being “one of them“…. know what I mean?

Well, now I am one of them, and I find that I am learning a lot just by being forced to sit down and write a 300 word photography tip once each week. It is fun, and it make me actually think about how to put my motorized picture-taking process into a logical set of words.

Now my goal is to post the same tips on both sites… sort of double-dipping with the Doritos, if you will.

This blog has been made up of many fun, personal, non-photography experiences. I love to write like this, when I find the time. I will still attempt to keep posting my more personal posts here. If I am slacking, I know Rachael will kick me in the butt and nudge me to post a blog; you know how she is! You will also start seeing a few of my tips here.

Oh! by the way, we all survived the massive 3-foot tsunami following the Chilean earthquake. It was a really great practice drill for the island, and we all shared the aloha that day as we sat for hours on the mountain. It was a huge, fun backyard party and BBQ once we saw how harmless the 4 waves were. We will be extra-ready for the next time!

Aloha, a hui hou…
~r

The Maui Arts and Cultural Center this week presented Holo Mai Pele, by Hilo’s Halau o Kekuhi. I was fortunate enough to attend the pre-show workshop with my camera. In attendance were several iconic hula teachers. No need to name names here, folks….

It was a real treat for Maui hula afficionados.

After months of planning, it is finally time to announce my June photography workshop!

The workshop will be officially announced tomorrow morning to several thousand people on my email list. I expect it to sell out to all ten lucky students pretty quickly. This workshop is unique from all the others, as we will be living together, “boot camp” style, in a dormitory. This intensive 6 day, 6 night adventure will be all-inclusive! I have arranged for accomodations, meals, and all ground transportation!!!

To top this off, I have partnered up with the incredible Photoshop Evangelist Dr. Russell Brown from Adobe! Yes, this is the Emmy Award winning, Photoshop Hall-of-Fame inductee, world-famous mad scientist himself!

Maui Pro shooter Aubrey Hord will be our assistant. Her job is to keep us on track, and on schedule for the duration of the week.

Please download the brochure by clicking HERE.

~randy

I spent this past weekend at the legendary Ka’anapali Beach Hotel. This was my 18th November in a row, as a guest there. KBH, as most of us call the classic Hawaiian joint, is one of my homes-away-from-home. The staff is my family and the endless stream of food makes me fat & happy.

The occasion for my visit was again the Hula o Na Keiki (Children’s Hula Competition). The individual male and female hula dancers range in age from about 11 to 17 years old. Their dances are intense and steeped with tradition and protocol (not the cutsy type of hula you might expect an immature child to dance).

For the 18th time, I woke up early on the following Sunday morning to photograph the winners at sunrise on the beach. You see, in the lobby at the hotel is a wall of fame, where each male and female winner has a portrait hanging in perpetuity. It is a legacy that has been building from one generation into the next. A third generation of hula champions will be on the wall in just 4 or 5 more years.

That wall is one of the hidden treasures in Ka’anapali  — not because I made the photos, but because it gives true insight to the future of the hula and the direction of the Hawaiian culture. The vast majority of the children whom have won this competition have grown up to become cultural leaders and hula teachers.

Again, for the fourth year straight, the winners were students of Kumu Hula Haunani Peredes, and Brandon Peredes. If you have seen any of my posters, you know who Haunani is. She won this very event 17 years ago!

Many mahalos again, KBH, for your committment! And mahalos also to photographer Aubrey Hord for assisting me and capturing these candid images.

I just ran across a file of images that I shot quickly during another job. She is one of my favorite model-dancers…     Introducing Danielle!

I never looked at this image before. This time I moved it from the digital world and made it look “filmy”. So images just deserve a grainy darkroom look, don’t they?

It seems like every time I visit a a new part of our national parks system I find myself in awe of the beauty within this country.

This past month I traveled the “grand staircase” of the Southwest. The top step being Bryce Canyon National Park (9000 feet); the middle step being Zion National Park (7000 feet), and the lower step being the Grand Canyon National Park (7000-3000 feet-ish).

Aside from nearly freezing to death on my very first night in my pup-tent at Bryce (it was eleven degrees according to the ranger who can to see if I was still alive in my mummy-bag), all went pretty well. I made some nice images and coated my new camera sensor with a thick layer of powdery dust during my month in the wilderness. (Mental note: Bring a squeeze-blower to clean sensor when in the desert.)

This was my fourth year in a row to explore deep into the Grand Canyon with a very trusted group of canyon experts. There were 9 of us this year who dared to hike the “Tapeats/Cranberry Creek/Deer Creek/Kanab Creek/Indian Hollow” circle route as mapped by the famous canyoneer George Steck. If I hadn’t been with the experienced climbers I was with, I would have turned around after the first day and gone back to the car. We had to rope-in several times on sheer ledges. I was thinking, after each time my heavy pack was lifted or lowered by rope, “good thing my Gitzo Tripod has a lifetime warranty” because it was completely beat up, along with the rest of my pack.

For those who have gone deep into the Grand Canyon wilderness, it is somewhat impossible to try and explain the exhilaration to those whom have just stood on the rim above.

It will be several more days before I have a chance to really look at my latest images, but I wanted to post these before moving on to other projects.

I was lucky enough to ask my Samoan friend to model for a an assignment for the U.S. Census Bureau posters. She transformed from a nervous subject into a top model in a 2 hour period! What a lucky find for me. I hope to photograph her again soon.

What a face. And a warm personality to suit.

I will be off to Photoshop World Conference in a couple of days. That alone is enough action in four days to kill a person… but wait, there is more…. Never before have I seen Bryce Canyon, or Zion National Park! And so I will head there after Vegas, for 5 nights in my pup-tent in the desert.

But wait! There is more! I will head to a desolate trail head  on the North rim of the Grand Canyon and meet up with my “October Canyon Group” and head down in to the “giant crack” for 7 nights of wilderness camping and exploration. Woo hoo!

From Vegas to absolute isolation will be something of a shock. Huh?  It’ll be fun.