In short, these images were taken in June of this year during a 2 1/2 week trip to Hokkaido Island, in the north of Japan. To see more imagery and learn more about Hokkaido, read the initial blog post at this link:

From the Archive: Hokkaido Island, Japan Series I

The photos below are just a selection of the 120 photographs of Hokkaido, which I recently uploaded to my stock library. All are available for licensing at this link:

Hokkaido Island | Japan at Thomas Pickard’s Stock Archive.

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]]> http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/09/from-the-archive-hokkaido-island-japan-series-ii/feed/ 0 http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/08/travel-lifestyle-portfolio-refresh/ http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/08/travel-lifestyle-portfolio-refresh/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:35:55 +0000 Thomas Pickard http://thomaspickard.com/blog/?p=2056

Adobe Lightroom screen grab

Yesterday I began what I call the portfolio refresh process. Using Adobe Lightroom I managed to go through 40,000 odd images and get that down to 565 in the first edit. Not bad.

By the second edit I had the number down to 339.

The third edit things were down to 273 and as you can tell, slowing!

It gets harder and harder for me to edit as the image numbers become smaller. My final target is 30-40 images, so another 233 images have to go.

Now I’m starting to look for the image pairs and the overall structure of how I think my new travel and lifestyle portfolio will look.

While it is always daunting refreshing a portfolio, I love the process of editing and giving some hard thought to final image choices. Thankfully tools like Lightroom exist and if you set it up right, you can quickly filter through tens of thousands of images – a huge time saver.

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]]> http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/08/travel-lifestyle-portfolio-refresh/feed/ 0 http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/08/on-honing-a-vision/ http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/08/on-honing-a-vision/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:11:50 +0000 Thomas Pickard http://thomaspickard.com/blog/?p=2051

Honing a Vision

“We did a couple of small jobs around the city and then we went to Europe for three months to hone what our vision was going to be,” says Morgan-Owens, “We shot a ton of black-and-white on KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400 Film, and just kept shooting until we figured out what it looked like to be Morgan & Owens. From there, we built a new portfolio and started building our client base.”

Morgan & Owens via Kodak Professional Pro Pass online magazine.

You have to take the time to develop who you are photographically. No doubt about it.

Make sure you check out Morgan & Owens work if you love high end travel photography.

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In particular, I love Hokkaido Island.

Situated in the very north of the country, Hokkaido accounts for 20% of Japan’s land mass. Population wise, Hokkaido is pretty sparse compared to the rest of Japan and that is just how I like it. More importantly, Hokkaido is Japan’s premier wilderness destination.

In winter powder hounds flock to Hokkaido to sample some of the 10-15 metres of annual snow fall. In summer, the Japanese flock to Hokkaido to go hiking and trekking in the beautifully barren mountains. Whether you are visiting in winter or summer, one of the best things about Hokkaido – apart from Asahi beer – is the onsens, or hot springs. There is nothing quite like climbing a volcano in the morning, having a scrub and a soak in an outdoor onsen in the afternoon and then frying up a big slab of wild salmon for dinner.

The photos below are just a selection of the 120 photographs of Hokkaido, which I recently uploaded to my stock library. All are available for licensing at this link:

Hokkaido Island | Japan at Thomas Pickard’s Stock Archive.

License the image by clicking on it.

Embed and share at your own site by clicking the triangle in the lower right hand corner.

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1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Seth Godin’s Simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything.

Translation for photographers’:

1. Decide on what you want to photograph and why.

2. Go and photograph it and do it really well.

3. Don’t be one of those photographers who is hard to deal with. Keep it light and real.

4. A big promise can be to yourself or to a client.

5. Shipping it out the door is imperative. Connect with the right people and get your work in front of them.

When finished, repeat.

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People relaxing in a swimming pool, Bangkok, Thailand.

Looking at this photo you may be thinking that this was done in Photoshop. While it is true you can easily create such effects with Photoshop, this was in fact the result of using a tilt-shift lens.

I’ve been using Nikon’s 24 mm tilt-shift lens for a while now. Tilt-shift lens help with perspective correction, which is pretty important with architectural and interior photography.

In the case of this photograph, I’ve used the tilt-shift lens to provide a very different perspective. This look is a tell tale sign that an image was made with a tilt shift lens. While some people don’t like the way it makes everything look so small, I enjoy mixing it up with what I shoot and how I shoot.

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This weeks photo from the archive comes from Port Lockroy in Antarctica.

Antarctica is without a doubt one of my favourite places in the world. Working in Antarctica is all about adventure and what lays around the next corner, so to speak.

When I work in Antarctica as a Guide / Photography Lecturer, one of the things we always do prior to a passenger landing, is take a scout zodiac (inflatable motorised boat) and check out the actual landing site. Driving a zodiac without any passengers, is a bit like being given the keys to dad’s car when you are growing up. Fun, fun, fun.

You get to zip around icebergs; shoot the breeze with other scouting staff and generally marvel at being paid to do such amazing things, in such an incredible locations.

Now don’t get me wrong. Taking passengers on zodiac cruises around glaciers and facilitating landings with passengers is good fun too – great in fact. For me at least, it is the combination of the people you meet and the places you collectively see, that really make the journeys worth while.

View and license images from the Antarctic Peninsula at Thomas Pickard’s Stock Archive.

Related Posts:

New Antarctic Images

From the Archive: Whaler’s Bay

From the Archive: Chinese Forecaster Portrait at Great Wall Station, Antarctica

License the image by clicking on it.

Embed and share at your own site by clicking the triangle in the lower right hand corner.

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“It’s a matter of self-respect and I think that there’s a distinct risk to allowing something so integral to your own financial solvency to be cast aside because a photographer is afraid of offending the client.”

Matt Slaby / Luceo Images in Legal Left, Meet Creative Right – A Case For Net 30

To people that email me from time-to-time about advice on getting into photography and the like, please take the time to read this excellent post by Matt Slaby at Luceo Images.

If the importance of collecting payment from your clients’ in a timely manner hasn’t sunken in after reading that post, then think of it this way. When a business doesn’t pay you on time, they are effectively using money owed to you (yes, you), to run their business.

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Published in Illinois Tool Works Inc Annual Report 2009. Thomas Pickard / Wonderful Machine

I received this job earlier in the year through my North Amercian rep, Wonderful Machine. You can read the background about the job – which produced this image above – in the post Wonderful, Wonderful Machine.

I always enjoy seeing how my work ends up being used. Big thanks to Mike at Smith Design & Co. Illinois, USA for such a clean layout. Love it!

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School lunches from around the world, May/June 2010 issue of Afar Magazine. My photo is the white plate on the red table cloth, bottom right.

If there is one thing I really love about the world of photography these days, it is this: it is easier than ever to connect with Photo Editors’ and for them to take advantage of where you may be travelling to.

Let me explain.

In late December 2009, an email popped up in my inbox asking for shots of school lunches from around the world. The PE at Afar Magazine wanted to assign the job to multiple photographers, in multiple countries. With my January/February trip to the Maldives already booked, I put my hand up for the Maldives and was assigned it.

Now to be honest, this wasn’t the most glamorous of assignments, but it was actually a lot of fun. In the Maldives I hooked up with my Maldivian friend and fellow photographer, Ahmed Zahid. Together we went to the boys school in Male’ and after explaining what I was after to two different people, we were given permission to do the shoot (well, take two photos – shoot is a bit of a stretch!).

The photo taking bit took about 8-minutes. The getting permission bit took about 22-minutes. That night I uploaded the hi-res images and sent them to my editor.

In June of this year I was killing some time at Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to Japan. What did I spot in the newsagency? None other than the May/June 2010 issue of Afar. Flicking through I found the double page spread and let me tell you, it looks great!

If you haven’t seen Afar magazine yet, then make sure you get a copy. One of the things I really like about it is the print quality and colour reproduction. I’m not sure what paper they use, but it has a great pearly type feel to it. As for the colour reproduction, it is fantastic. The content is great too. Grab a copy and have a read.

Thanks to Tara from Afar Magazine for assigning me the Maldives.

Afar Magazine

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