Seufert's Scenes

Cape Cod Photo of the Week- A Chatham Christmas

This week's image is a sample of what is called HDR or High Dynamic Range photography.  It's a combination of three photos, shot at different exposures of -2, 0, and +2, exposure settings.  This allows  much better detail in difficult exposure situations.

The Chatham Christmas Stroll is this weekend and I have a book signing for my latest book "Cape Cod & Islands Views: A Photo Journal" from 1pm to 3pm at Yellow Umbrella Books on Saturday, December 13th.  Swing by and say "Hi."

Christopher Seufert Photography

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Free Cape Cod Screensaver- Happy Holidays!

Well, it's the beginning of the holiday season here on the Cape and a happy one to you all.  Thanks also to Cape Cod Today for providing such a great, liberal blog environment all year long..... 

In the spirit of this dismal economy here's a little gift I designed utilizing some of my favorite general Cape Cod & Islands images from the past year.  It's a cross-platform, fully tested computer screensaver, and it's currently available from Apple downloads here.

It features 17 photos from all over the Cape and Islands, a relaxing ocean soundscape (Chatham's Lighthouse Beach), and one bonus desktop image of the Euphoria dune shack in Provincetown.  Nothing too tacky and annoying, just right for your office.

 And here's the info about a book signing I'm having this Saturday....

Stay out of traffic,

Christopher Seufert Photography

http://www.CapeCodPhoto.net

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Cape Cod Photo of the Week- "Edward Gorey's Desk"

I shot this photo of Edward Gorey's desk the week of his death on April 15, 2000 as part of a documentary I was doing with him about his everyday life.  I spent most of that week in his house with the permission of the estate documenting the way he left his things on photo and video.  He did most of his illustrations over the last 20 years in this cramped space, taking breaks at the couch in his living room with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or some USA network movie on the tv.

You can see info about the upcoming documentary here.

Shot with a fisheye lens, this image is included in my new coffee table photography book Cape Cod and Islands Views: A Photo Journal, available here.

The book will be released with a signing at the Chatham Bars Inn gift shop this Saturday, November 29 from 2pm to 4pm. 

Stop by to enter the raffle and win a free framed print also.

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Cape Cod Photo of the Week - "Euphoria Dune Shack at Sunset"

This week's photo was taken in September in the Provincelands.

It's a prospective image from my upcoming coffee table book "Dune Shack Life: Photos from the Cape Cod National Seashore."   I stayed at a similar shack just across the valley from this one and watched the sun set every night from this vantage point.

©Christopher Seufert Photography

CapeCodPhoto.net

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Get Out and Vote!

McCain or Obama?  Get out and Vote!

Images from the polls at Chatham, Cape Cod...

Photos ©Christopher Seufert Photography.

Licensing available at http://www.CapeCodPhoto.net and blog them however you'd like.

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A Cape Cod Photographer's Day Off

Anyone who's self employed like me knows the awful realization that comes at the end of a long work day when you've earned nothing.  Sure, you may have ordered new envelopes, designed an ad for insertion into the local paper, answered a dozen phone calls and emails, written your business blog, paid bills, mailed invoices, and been overall very productive with your To Do List, but no money was actually made.  That's the reality of running your own business.  Priorities have to be made not just with an eye on what your business needs but on how you're going to get paid.  Always, always.  I do as much country-doctor trading as the next Cape business but basic raw cash is a non-negotiable.

So, as a photographer, videographer, and general media-maker-about town, I personally am always looking to make money on my days off too.  This compensates, in part at least, for those not-so-glorious unpaid work days.  Case in point:  I shot the photo above  just feet from my beach chair, where I was perched with my then-girfriend, now wife, Lisa (god bless her patience).  8 seconds of distraction with a Nikon Coolpix and a $20 wide angle lens adapter have gone a long way.  Since shooting the photo two years ago I've made several hundred dollars off of the image and gotten lots of welcome exposure.  I'm no dummy.  I've learned to keep several small point and shoots on me at all times, and to live this "paid" day-off ethic as if my life depends upon it (which it does), even on my honeymoon to Hawaii.  For example, this image below is now up on the web site of the hotel where we stayed in Mauna Lani and I also sell this as a stock photo.

It does, of course, take a lot of effort both to do it and also, just as importantly, to reign it in enough so that it doesn't ruin all the fun or isn't just plain rude to the people you're with.  When I return to work I usually post my images to Flickr as a first order of business over coffee.  If the photo's any good I usually get some low level unpaid blog usage by lunch time, which is where the paid opportunities begin to trickle in over the next year or so.

So many photographers get bent out of shape about putting up unwatermarked, high-quality images on the web, and they shoot themselves in the foot.  Conversely, my experience has been that doing so provides more income than whatever losses take place through theft.  In short, you make out in the long run.  Another good rule for business, be in the business of "Yes."  The photo won the Kodak Challenge (part of the PGA Tour) this week and I did not enter myself. I was solicited by one of their reps at Flickr.  That's right, they asked me to enter.

Here are the current details on this image.  Gotta go now.  It's 3:00 and I've earned no money today.  But, I did just receive an email at Flickr from a graphic design company wanting to pay me $75 for an image I've already published countless times, most notably at the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce as the cover of their meeting and event guide www.CapeCodMeetings.com.  And of course, I shot it on my day off at Race Point Beach in Provincetown last year. 

"Cape Cod Golf  (Ridgevale Beach, Chatham)" credits.

This week it won Photo of the Week in the 2008 Kodak Challenge Contest and was also published in the summer, 2008 issue of Australasian Women's Golf. 

It was also published in the 2008 summer issue of Cape Cod Magazine as part of a solo spread entitled Crab's Eye View and as a lesson depicting proper use of depth of field in the June, 2008 issue of Shutter Bug Source.

I shot this on my day off at Ridgevale beach in Chatham.  It's always great when a day off shot earns money, which balances those work days when I make nothing.

©Christopher Seufert Photography
To license this image or purchase a framed photo visit www.CapeCodPhoto.net

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Shooting Successful Aerial Photographs: Lesson #3

Normally, a great Cape Cod aerial photo is shot without any obstructions in the frame, no front propeller, no landing gear or strut, no window frame, and certainly no tail. This photo of Chatham's new break, shot on April 26, 2008 does really impart how breathtaking it can be to fly over the dramatic coastline that we have here on the Cape, and it's an exception.  I thus included it in my new book "Chatham by Air" which will be released with a signing on Saturday, July 12 at my new Cape photo gallery at 2469 Main Street.

More importantly however, if you're interested in taking aerial photos for yourself, this photo does show where you should sit in a plane and at what angle you should shoot.  Sit in the front and shoot through the open pilot's side window.  Do not shoot through the plexiglass from the front seat and don't try to shoot from the back right side.  

From the rear left you can share the pilots line of sight and communicate what you need much better than from the other two positions. With that angle the pilot can rotate the plane around any point of interest as needed, and you can shoot the angle they're giving you, rather than freelancing it from another angle.  Yes, this does involve talking to and directing the pilot.  One of the reasons you don't fill those empty two seats with friends and family when you're shooting.  Your pilot will thank you to not to have another person talking to them when you're giving them navigation instructions.  More importantly, you don't have a single prop newbie throwing up on board next to you or asking that you stop turning the plane in circles incessantly.  Throw up will drag any shoot down.

So come by the new gallery for some free wine and cheese tomorrow and let me know what you think of my prints.  It's one thing to shoot great compositions but a whole other level of work getting them to print well large.  I've also got a vintage camera collection on display throughout the gallery for those looking to get an old twin lens reflex or box camera into their hands again or see some of the fun toy cameras of the past.  

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Shooting Successful Aerial Photographs : Lesson #2

The second in a series of lessons about taking good aerial photographs.

#2: In order to shoot moving objects from the air, such as boats and cars, match the direction and speed of the object as closely as possible.

   (Unsuccessful Image)

The above unsuccessful aerial image of a boat is blurry not because of the settings on the camera but because the direction of the plane was the opposite of the boats direction, creating too great a speed differential. The exposure is good and so is the angle, 45 degrees is optimal, however, the camera cannot compensate for the object's speed. 

   (Successful Image)

To get crisp aerial photos of moving objects you'll want to fly the plane or helicopter in SAME direction as the target object. The above successful image below has good focus because the difference in the direction and rate of speed between my plane and the boat itself are much closer together than the previous blurry image.

Take your time when shooting water or land transportation. Turn the plane or copter around and fly in the same direction. 

Christopher Seufert will be releasing a hard cover aerial photography book, featuring the town of Chatham, Cape Cod in June of 2008.  Visit his gallery in the Chatham Media Center at 2469 Main Street in South Chatham or online here http://www.CapeCodAerial.com.

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Shooting Successful Aerial Photographs : Lesson #1

The first in a series of lessons about how to take great Cape Cod aerial photographs.

#1- Do not sit in the front seat and attempt to shoot through the windshield, instead have the pilot open the side window and shoot from the back seat.

(Unsuccessful Aerial Photograph)

The above image, shot seconds apart from the following one, was snapped as the lighthouse rolled around in sight from my open window behind the plexiglass.  The focus is good and it can be color corrected but the manual editing required is prohitive in a professional workflow.  The glass casts reflections, refracts images, distorts focus, and most damagingly adds a green tint to all shots.

(Successful Aerial Photograph)

The above successful image of the Monomoy Point Lighthouse in Chatham was shot out the open window, seconds before the later image which follows in this series, shot through the plexiglass window.  Always have the pilot open a window and shoot through the opening from the back seat. Turn the plane for your shots, rather than turning and shooting out windows.

Christopher Seufert will be releasing a hard cover aerial photography book, featuring the town of Chatham, Cape Cod in June of 20008.  Visit his gallery in the Chatham Media Center at 2469 Main Street in South Chatham or online here http://www.CapeCodAerial.com.

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What it Takes to Live on the Cape

I grew up in Chatham and I've worked a lot of jobs here, like anyone who's managed the trick of both growing up and living here.  No matter what sort of work I've done however, save my first one possibly, as a paper boy for the Cape Cod Times, it takes a certain hustle and shuffle to make it work, and I mean work in the real sense of paying bills, rent, food, outrageous gas prices, and the occasional Squire beer or ticket to the Wellfleet Drive-In.  Actually, I rode my bike through way too many snow storms and picked up too many blown away papers to not count that one, so include it.

Yes, being able to stay on the Cape these days takes either a lot of over-time and job juggling if you're staff employed or a lot of plain hard headedness if you're self-employed. I'm not landscaping, painting houses, or bartending these days.  No, I'm lucky enough to be running my own video and photography company and do it full time.  However,  I still need to hustle to make it work in that real sense.  We have city prices here without the city wages.  To cover it in my line of work I've always needed to land a certain number of jobs over the bridge.  There's just not enough new media work here to make it work.  But these days my life line is more often the internet cable than actual travel.

Let's use stock and editorial photos as a case in point.  When I come in from the field I cull my best shots out, edit them, and post them to Flickr, which is now just as commonly used by editorial staffers for photo research as it is for baby pictures.  Have aspirations for photography work yourself?  Don't dismiss sites like this as a hobbyist waste of your work day. 

Here's a sample of some of the recent jobs I've gotten via Flickr.

1. 

This was just published by Harpo Inc. at Oprah's web site as part of the March edition of Breathing Space.
www2.oprah.com/spiritself/insp/ss_insp_bs_main.jhtml

2. 

This image was pubished by the grassroots journalism magazine Arcwire as part of a study of the world's oceans.

"The study concludes that there is no oceanic area unaffected by human influence. Combined factors including over-fishing, coastal development, shipping traffic, and pollution run-off, threaten the existence of marine organisms in many ways, and make our impact on the oceans very complex. Scientists, in recent months, have also reported the giant "dead zone" off the coast of Washington is expanding, not to mention the vast islands of plastic trash forming in the Pacific."

See the image in use here.
<a href="http://arcwire.org/content/view/63/15/">arcwire.org/content/view/63/15/</a>

3.            

Published as the cover of Cape Healing Arts Magazine. See it in use here as a PDF
www.negreen.com/images/CHA_fall07-Negreen.pdf

4.

Published as part of the Wayside Inn's online tour of Chatham, featuring the photos of Christopher Seufert.

See the online slideshow here.
www.waysideinn.com/index.cfm?page=1

5.

This image was published as the cover of the NPACE Women's Health Conference on Cape Cod brochure.

See more about it here.
www.npace.org/pdf/CapeCod2007.pdf

6. 

This image of Race Point Beach in Provincetown has been published several times, most recently by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce as the cover image for the Cape Cod Meeting and Planning Guide, available here www.CapeCodMeetings.com.

7. 

This photo was just published by the Journal of Light Construction (70,000 subscribers) to show how seriously the remaining structures on this stretch of beach are threatened by the growing cut, which is battered daily by the Atlantic Ocean. See more at www.jlconline.com.

8. 

his image of an oyster at Chatham's Forest St. Beach was published in Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cook Book.

The book offers 12 recipes for the oyster lover. From appetizers like Baked Oysters Ralph to a main course of Oysters and Fettuccine, aficionados of this mollusk can design an entire meal around it -- except dessert, of course. The cookbook not only has recipes using oysters but a thorough preparation guide as well for those preparing this fruit of the sea for the first time.

See more here
http://ralphbrennancookbook.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-enjoy-oysters.html

9. 

Published as a promotional postcard of 3,000 by Sotheby's Realty International.
<a href="http://www.sothebysrealty.com/">www.sothebysrealty.com/</a>

I'll stop there, but you get the point..  Working like this is a lot more pleasant than plowing through snow, so don't dismiss the blog and social networking sites as something one does on weekends. These days there's real bread, butter, and gas being earned this way....  That's what I call Web 2.0.

All photographs are ©Christopher Seufert Photography. Contact me here for licensing this image.  My rates are very reasonable and I turnaround within minutes of your inquiry.   <a href="http://www.CapeCodPhoto.net">www.CapeCodPhoto.net</a>

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