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How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money

01 Mar

The post How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

building-a-portfolio-career-as-a-photographer

When you’re starting in business as a photographer, it can be tough to find a reliable income. Often jobs will be unpredictable as to when they come in – and getting paid can be even more of a guessing game! Building a portfolio career is one way that you can counteract the unpredictability of being a freelance photographer.

Diversifying your revenue streams right from the start is a way to build a more predictable income. By having multiple diverse but related sources of income, you can mitigate ups and downs in each revenue stream while having a photographic career that allows you the freedom to shoot several different subjects.

building a portfolio career

ISO400, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/80th sec

Lay the foundation

Start by mind-mapping around the fields of photography that you love.

Try to think of every possible source of photographic income that those fields might have, no matter how big or small. All of these could contribute to building a portfolio career.

Out of everything you’ve written down, highlight all of the income sources that could be done on a regular contract for someone else. The first income stream that you need to provide a solid foundation for is one that is both regular and guaranteed.

Ideally, this regular, but potentially low paid work will cover all of your essential bills. And when I say essential, I mean putting an extra jumper on and eating beans on toast all month.

building a portfolio career

ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f4, 1/80th sec

You could consider jobs like real estate photography, nightclub photography, or in-house product photography. None of these options will set your creative soul on fire, but they will still provide a stable foundation for you to start to build your career.

Build the walls

Now you start to do the kind of photography that you want to do. You’re looking for options in your mind-map of ideas that could be regular but might not be quite as reliable as your foundation income.

This might be where you consider incomes like freelance product photography, portraits, or weddings.

All these income streams can be a little unpredictable, at least for the first few years of your career. On top of that, some kinds of photography, like weddings, can be quite seasonal.

Image: Headshots have been a reasonably reliable income for me over the past five or six years. They...

Headshots have been a reasonably reliable income for me over the past five or six years. They’re great because I can do them either at home or on location, and I can be available at reasonably short notice!
ISO400, 100mm, f3.5, 1/125th sec, natural window light

Over time, this income can become more regular. You’ll find that clients come back again and again if they love the pictures and the service! Eventually, you’ll be able to drop the initial low-paid but regular work that you sought in favor of this better-paid income stream.

Put the roof on

Between your foundations and the walls, you’ve got the beginnings of a significant portfolio career. Now you want to look at the well-paid occasional jobs that buy the luxuries like foreign holidays or serious gear upgrades.

Look back at your mind-map once again and think about what large, one-off gigs there might be available to you with your current skillset. You might be able to offer portrait photography at a large business conference, for example, or be on a list of photographers who shoot portraits for magazine interviews.

You’re looking for the high-ticket jobs that are sporadic. They can’t provide a reliable income because of the very nature of the work, but they can offer you good-sized cash injections now and again. It could be a yearly job or one that comes up every few months. But the unpredictability means that you shouldn’t count it as part of your regular income.

building a portfolio career

Each month I try to set a day aside to create unique and creative stock imagery for use on book covers and the like. It doesn’t provide regular sales, but when these images do sell, they pay well!
Both images shot with a beauty dish in the studio.

Business networking meetings can be an excellent place to find these jobs that will help with building a portfolio career. Often you’ll talk to someone and hand over a business card, and you’ll hear nothing for months. But when they do eventually call, it can be for a sizable job, so make sure you have some sample quotes and an idea of what you might charge for different scenarios.

You don’t have to think of every possible situation and make a fantasy quote for it, but have a few that you can adapt with a couple of days notice for the kind of jobs you’d like to do.

Start a nest-egg

Once you’ve established a good income, it’s time to make your photos work harder and build a long-term passive income. You can start to look at options such as stock photography to assist you in building a portfolio career.

For almost the last fifteen years, I’ve been building up collections with various stock libraries. It is a slow process, but worth it when you start to see regular payouts a few years down the line.

You can shoot images specifically for stock libraries if you have some spare time to fill. Many libraries will regularly publish lists of the kind of content that they’re looking to obtain from photographers. If you shoot what’s on the list, you should start to see an income quite quickly. If they’re asking for various subjects, it means that clients are asking for them!

Image: These two images were shot back in 2007 and are amongst my best earners in all that time! The...

These two images were shot back in 2007 and are amongst my best earners in all that time! They consistently make me small but regular sales and have always done so. Both of these images were shot on my Mum’s kitchen table – just showing you can earn anywhere!

You can also reuse images from other shoots that you’ve done, sending them to the stock libraries once you’ve completed the job. Be sure to check your contract, or check with the client if they’re okay with you doing this, but people rarely say no.

An example might be that if you are booked to shoot a fantastic local food market, the client might also allow you to upload these images to stock libraries. You might then look into a specialist food stock agency if you’re shooting this kind of content regularly. In time, you’ll become well-known as a photographer in this field.

Above all, just get started

You can only start your photographic career if you’re willing to put yourself out there and start looking for work. The most important thing is to start somewhere, even if you’re not quite sure where the best place to start is. You can work out the details later.

Try to look for income streams in all of the brackets above. That way, you won’t be putting all of your eggs in one basket. You’ll be protected if one income streams dries up unexpectedly for a while.

Image: ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2, 1/600th sec

ISO200, 35mm (50mm equiv.), f2, 1/600th sec

Conclusion

This approach to a photographic portfolio career has enabled me to alternatively increase and scale back my income as and when required. It also helped me to build a solid base that wasn’t tied to any particular location, which means I can work from almost anywhere in the world!

If you’re thinking about building a portfolio career for yourself in photography, tell us about what your specialisms will be in the comments below. We’d love to hear about your plans!

The post How Building a Portfolio Career as a Photographer Can Earn You Money appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.


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US Pentagon’s Defense Department tasked with building a counter-drone SWAT team

22 Feb

Silicon Valley may be the hub for technical innovation but that’s not impressive to the Pentagon’s director of the Defense Digital Service (DDS), Brett Goldstein. He’s recruiting rapid-response ‘SWAT teams’ in-house to conquer threats posed by enemy drones. The team assembled for the first project is tasked with detecting, hacking, and jamming signals from pint-sized planes that are easy to build but difficult to detect – making them a significant threat.

How Goldstein intends to track these particular threats, primarily from terrorists, isn’t immediately clear. However, he tells Breaking Defense that ‘one of the things that I’ve been doing over the past few months is bringing in some new skill sets. It’s an interdisciplinary, multi-modal group ranging from electrical engineers to radio frequency experts to software engineers — and that is real today.’

‘We are top-notch engineers, and every engineer I assign to anything is a critical decision. That is a big investment to us and that level of engineering and technical talent… will be very high impact.’

‘We have this team, they’re working on these types of problems as we speak,’ he continues. The question remains: why not draw on everything the tech world has already built? The idea is to solve critical issues in real-time instead of waiting for solutions from the commercial sector. This approach is atypical for the DDS, who usually brings in Silicon Valley contractors. Goldstein, who succeeded founding director Chris Lynch last April, thinks that real innovation will only be accomplished with the type of long-term commitment found in developing teams with existing DDS employees.

The DDS, which is made up of 70 people, has merged with the 14 members of Rogue Squadron – part of the Defense Innovation Unit based in Palo Alto. While small by Pentagon standards, the collective consists entirely of in-house experts on small-drone threats. Goldstein will assign a half-dozen experts to work with Rogue Squadron. Goldstein plans to incrementally add on more team members.

‘We are top-notch engineers, and every engineer I assign to anything is a critical decision. That is a big investment to us and that level of engineering and technical talent… will be very high impact,’ Goldstein emphasizes. The task of getting members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps coordinated to combat threats from small drones is one the Pentagon’s top priorities. The resulting project is called Joint All Domain Command & Control.

If it all works out, members of the different forces listed above will be able to effectively communicate over land, sea, air, and cyberspace. The tech created from these efforts will be used for other threats besides targeting rogue drones. ‘This isn’t just about S-UAS; this is about broader DoD (Department of Defense) systems,’ Goldstein concludes.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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4 Tips for Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

06 Dec

The post 4 Tips for Building a Photography Portfolio and Business appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

For some of us, a photography business springs from a hobby and grows into a paid endeavor, and so we feel it just landed in our laps. To others, it was more of a dream that was kept close and dear and planned to make a reality for a long time. For others, doors of opportunity open at the right time and place, and they’ve grabbed it.

Regardless of how your photography business has come about, for your business to take shape and grow, there are necessary steps to take. These steps require many initiatives and work and do not depend on luck or open doors of opportunity.

Let me share with you a few tips for building a photography portfolio and business. This article is of benefit if you are building your business from scratch or have been in operation but have relocated, requiring you to start afresh in a new location.

2-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

1. Build a Strong Portfolio

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t expect that you have a massive pile of photoshoots under your belt in the beginning (although that would be great.) All you need is a handful of carefully curated photos for your portfolio. If you have any images from practices or hobby shoots, choose your very best images. The best of the best, even if you only end up with a handful. If you are brave enough to do so, choose one genre and focus on that!

Usually the more niched, the stronger the portfolio.

3-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

2. Call for Models

If you don’t have any images to use or you feel your images are not good enough yet, plan a model call-out. Shoot new images that are more focused and consistent – your portfolio benefits from more consistent images. The goal down the line is that you are the one people think of when they need a photo shoot of a particular type.

You’re the expert in that field, and therefore you can also command decent prices. Having this in mind at the very start of your portfolio-building helps you streamline your model call plans in regards to age group, style, outfits location, and set-up. Branding is vital, especially at this stage. One could go as far as saying branding is everything.

3-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

You have two choices for model calls:

1. You can ask friends or friends of friends. You can do a public call on your social media platforms. If going the friends’ route, you may decide not to charge as you may feel they are doing you a favor. That is your call. However, money doesn’t grow on trees in business. Money comes from clients or investors who want a return on their investment.

Therefore, don’t be quick to offer your services for free, especially if you want to start charging decent fees or market rate. It’s hard for a potential paying client to start paying good money after initially being offered a freebie.

2. There are other options far better than offering freebies. You can do a barter of some sort. Think of something that either party finds beneficial with relatively equal values. You can also charge a fair rate for portfolio building that is lower than the market rate. You can offer the session at no charge in exchange for the model call but sell the prints. That way it’s not a total freebie.

Right off the bat, learn to accept money from clients without feeling guilty or feeling that you don’t deserve it. Also, don’t be embarrassed about it!

4-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

3. Have a Web Presence

Nowadays, if you are not on the web, you are not on the map. You don’t need a super-fancy website either if you feel that is out of reach at the moment. Although, it is easy enough to start a website using readily adaptable templates. More importantly, use social media platforms that are free and easy to set up such as Facebook and Instagram.

If possible, have both. However, if you are only doing one, a top tip is to think about your audience. What platform is your target market using? Parents with children are usually on Facebook. Younger age groups, like seniors, early 20s and 30s, are on Instagram. If you are after more real-time conversations and engagement with your followers, you could also link your accounts on Twitter.

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A Web Presence is Your Virtual Office

Having a web presence is like having a virtual office. People can contact you and view your strongest images in your portfolio. This tool can be leveraged to reach more people, especially friends of friends. You can tag friends, share on their page, and ask them to share. All of these methods help to spread the word about you.

By tapping into your contacts’ friends, you are starting from a position of trust. You are no longer a stranger to a potential client but a referral. Use that to your advantage. By being reached easily on social media channels, you become more of a real person than just a webshop.

6-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

4. Print Some Business Cards and Stationery

While they may seem old-fashioned, business cards are useful because some people expect them, and they are great if you are networking in-person. If you want to be memorable, make your cards into a magnet, so you stay on people’s fridges! Think of something quirky, or at least different, so that you stand out more.

Having some printed promotional materials like mini-brochures and vouchers are invaluable. They come in handy if you want to collaborate with other small businesses in your area, such as your local health clinics for baby and maternity shoots, or boutique shops that sell outfits that fit with your branding.

6-dps-Building a Photography Portfolio and Business

I hope the tips in this article will help you in some way as you start your photography business. If you have any other tips, please share them in the comments below.

You may also find this article helpful.

The post 4 Tips for Building a Photography Portfolio and Business appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.


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6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

28 Sep

Let’s all agree that photography is one of the most frustrating yet creatively satisfying art forms out there. We all remember the passion we felt when we first started out on our photography journey. The thrill of clicking the shutter and excitedly looking at the back of the camera (if you started with digital photography) and that feeling like opening gifts on Christmas morning when you got your prints back from the developing lab (if you started with film). You know you couldn’t get enough of capturing life through a lens. Nothing quite beats the rush of knowing that you have created something cool! Right?

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

My lovely clients – they have been with me for through many of their most important moments, and I love them for trusting me and my creativity.

Why is it, then, that most of us eventually fall into the comparison trap and start to lose confidence in our skills? Our creativity, authenticity, and confidence get shaded in our own eyes by self-manifested doubts and shortcomings. It leaves us dejected, uninspired, and sometimes even angry. We all seem to judge ourselves against someone else’s successes – be it money, opportunities or even social media fame (yes, that seems to be quite the rage these days).

So how does one overcome those self-doubts? Here are some tips I’ve found helpful when the ugly head of self-doubt cripples my creativity.

#1 Take a break from it all

Stop obsessing about photography and go do something else you really enjoy. It could be something big like taking a trip without your camera to something small and simple like going to the movies, cooking your favorite meal, meeting up with friends, or even dancing with your kids.

No matter what you choose, find something that you really enjoy and do it just for the sake of enjoyment. It will help clear your head and allow happiness based endorphins to flow through your body leading to more positive thoughts and feelings. Personally, I pack away my gear and read a book – old romance novels from the 1970s always manages to help me bounce back and feel happy. Other times, we load up the car and head out to the mountains. So my books and hiking shoes are two of my most prized possessions.

K6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography - Olympic National Park Backcountry Hiking

There is just something about photographing tiny humans among big landscapes that seems to put the whole world and all my personal problems into perspective.

#2 Play on your strengths

When I used to work in Corporate America, we were encouraged to create yearly goals based on our strengths and weaknesses. Try and apply similar principles when you think about what you want to accomplish from a photographic perspective. Think about what multiple people or clients have complimented you on. Focusing on strengths will help you set realistic goals with achievable results and give you that boost of confidence you need.

I have been told that I am good at natural posing. Helping my clients get comfortable in front of the camera is one of my skills. I am good at making the photographic experience easy, comfortable, and convenient for my clients. These are some of my personal strengths. I know that I don’t do high fashion and in-studio sessions well. I am much happier and progress faster when I focus on what I am good at rather than trying to be someone or something I’m not.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

Happy clients always makes for great pictures. These are the ones that will get shared and hung on walls for years to come – the best compliment for any photographer.

#3 Tackle your weaknesses one at a time

This goes in line with working on your strengths. Now that you have documented both – strengths as well as weaknesses – pick one weakness and really focus on that one area to prevent getting overwhelmed and discouraged.

Do you lack any technical photography skills? There are numerous workshops, articles, and YouTube videos that you can watch to try and get up to speed. Digital Photography School is also a great learning resource.

Do you struggle when interacting with clients? Stand in front of a mirror and practice your introduction pitch. Round up your friends and ask them to help you practice your interaction skills. Do you struggle with building your portfolio? Volunteer your services to organizations that need help.

Apply and practice the things you learn even if it is just with your family, kids, or the family pet. Remember, also, to be patient with yourself. As you improve, take time to appreciate your growth and celebrate your accomplishments. The best morale booster is your own internal vote of confidence. Remember accomplished photographers have all been where you are at some point in their lives. Success takes a lot of hard work and time.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

I have my own share of weakness that are a mile long but to keep my perspective and love for the art of photography I chose positively over negativity and so far that has worked in my favor.

#4 Have a competitive spirit for the right reasons

A little bit of competition is healthy. As humans, it is what keeps us going at times. But be careful not to confuse competition with jealousy. And never try to compete with other industry peers on price. That is a battle that can quickly go south. You have to just understand that there will always be someone who is willing to work longer hours, for cheaper rates. That’s just the reality of life in any field.

Understand what you bring to the table is unique and there are clients who want to work with you because of the experience and end product that you (and you alone) provide. Focus all your energy on finding those clients and not the ones that pick price over quality.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

A couple of weeks ago, I set up a styled shoot seminar at my local camera shop with a few of my favorite vendors. All the photographers in attendance shot the same setup, but we each put our own spin to the images based on our shooting as well as editing style. – Community over competition is a very powerful thing.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

My favorite images from the styled shoot reflect my brand and style. Plus this gave me more confidence in working with studio lighting – one of the areas I am not super confident.

#5 Health is the best kind of wealth

Nothing is worth sacrificing your health – both mental and physical. I have learned that lesson the hard way. Now I don’t overwork myself to the point of exhaustion nor do I sacrifice my sanity over difficult clients.

I always take a day off after photographing a wedding because it is physically exhausting and mentally draining. I avoid scheduling photography gigs one after the other because I know I get mentally exhausted and cannot produce my best creative work. We have to all acknowledge that sometimes self-doubt arises due to our poor health (either mental or physical) and the only way to overcome it is to get our mind, body, and soul in a much better space.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

Weddings are emotionally and physically draining but are so creatively satisfying for me. I love photographing them but would never do a tripleheader weekend, that would just about kill me.

#6 Remember your why

Why do you love photography? What is it about this art form that has you up at night trying to make it work? What’s your story? Is it the money? Is it the glory? Take the time to figure out your why and write it down.

Then when you start doubting yourself, go read your story. It will help you get things in perspective and ground you. I learned photography so I could:

  1. Document my own family and their crazy and unique personalities.
  2. Spend time at home with a more flexible schedule.
  3. Explore my creativity.
  4. Run my own business and work for myself

Hence my mission as a photographer is to provide my clients with creative images that are a true and authentic reflection of their own individual personalities while running a profitable business.

6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography

I find that I produce my best work when I am creatively fresh and mentally refreshed.

Remember that your why will be specific and unique to you and it is what will push you to overcome your setbacks and mental roadblocks as you continue on your photography journey.

Conclusion

I hope some of these tactics help you navigate the choppy photography waters. Remember there is nothing like a free lunch! Success in any shape or form takes time and hard work – lots of it. Roll up your sleeves, work your hardest, and you will get there. I look forward to hearing your successes and cheering you on.

The post 6 Tips for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence in Your Photography by Karthika Gupta appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Prefab Plyscraper: World’s Tallest Timber Building Tops Out at 173 Feet

27 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

On the University of British Columbia’s campus in Vancouver, a new record-setting wood structures highlights the many advantages of a growing trend: vertical timber construction. Brock Commons Tallwood house is the highest of its kind to date, providing housing for over 400 students.

The Canadian firm behind its construction, Acton Ostry Architects Inc, says that using wood allowed for a much faster building process. Offsite testing of wood-to-wood connections and structural stability meant less time onsite spent figuring things out. Combined with prefabrication techniques, these approaches helped the builders finish the tower in just 70 days.

In addition to cost and time savings, wooden structures like this one are lighter weight, requiring less energy input during construction while also making them more flexible and resistant to earthquakes.

Sustainable forestry also enables them to sequester carbon while using a renewable resource — wood buildings like this open the door to carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative projects. Use of glue-laminated beams and columns also allows thinner trees and offcuts to be used in the construction process, reducing waste and growth time for harvested plants.

Some concrete was still required for the elevator cores, metal was needed for connections, and windows, of course, required glass. Still, compared to steel-framed structures, the amount of these materials used was dramatically reduced. And this project is not alone — around the world, forward-thinking architects and developers are beginning to realize that wood is a useful material for building tall.

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The Bizarre, Chaotic Geometry of a Frank Gehry Building in Progress

17 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Depending on how you feel about Frank Gehry’s work, this building in progress could either be fascinating, monstrous or a combination of both. But it’s hard to argue with the fact that seeing the bones of such a complex structure is more interesting than the renderings of the finished building, which is another of the architect’s mirrored and faceted standouts. Inspired by the silhouettes of the mountain ranges of its southern France setting, ‘LUMA Arles’ will ultimately tower above an experimental contemporary art center.

Set on a former rail depot turned public park, the building is primarily sponsored by Swiss art collector Maja Hoffmann and is scheduled for completion in 2018. The working title for the tower is ‘Centre for Human Dignity and Ecological Justice,’ and it will host spaces for workshops, art studios, exhibitions, seminars and archives.

“We are creating a place where artists, thinkers, scientists – as well as doers and actors of the economic world – can gather and work together on new scripts for the world,” says Hoffmann of the project.

Photographer Victor Picon captured this series of images showing the intricate arrangements of metal ribs that will ultimately support the reflective cladding. Of course, Gehry’s a bit of a controversial figure in the architecture world, with some hailing his creations as visionary and others finding them garish and structurally unsound, noting that his Strata Center design at MIT has leaked, cracked and developed mold. What’s your stance on Gehry’s work?

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Splitting Bricks: Architectural Art Installation Tears a London Building Apart

10 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

A London building appears to have fallen victim to an earthquake tremor or foundation collapse, with a jagged section of its brick facade split in half and threatening to collapse altogether. But the deteriorating appearance of this otherwise pristine structure isn’t quite what it seems. Artist Alex Chinneck used 4,000 bricks to create the effect of a ripped piece of paper to create ’Six Pins and a Half Dozen Needles,’ a nearly 66-foot tall sculpture outside a mixed-use complex known as Assembly London.

With the paper reference, the artist pays tribute to the site’s former life as home to the publishing company Hammersmith. Chinneck says he spent months scanning torn sheets of paper to find just the right pleasing edge for the split. The sculpture blends into the main building behind it, partially obscuring a few windows, and its elevated position makes it a real eye-catcher. It’s two bricks deep, and took 14 months to complete, with the help of structural engineers, steelworkers and brick makers. Its stainless steel framework is bolted and welded to the building behind it.

Chinneck previously dropped jaws and raised eyebrows in London with two particularly dramatic installations: an upside-down car clinging to a curling piece of pavement outside the Southbank Centre, and a brick facade sliding off the front of a building in Kent. Unlike these previous works, however, ‘Six Pins’ is permanent.

“The work was onceived to engage people in a fun and uplifting way,” says Chinneck. “Although we use real brick, it was designed with a cartoon-like quality to give the sculpture an endearing artifice and playful personality. I set out to create accessible artworks and I sincerely hope this becomes a popular landmark for London and positive experience for Londoners.”

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Flat-Pack Mobile Architecture: This Building Will Self-Construct in 8 Minutes

11 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Requiring a single tool and very little power, these self-deploying structures are ready for use in minutes, expanding themselves to multiple times their compact travel size.

Based in the United Kingdom, Ten Fold Engineering’s structures can be packed onto ordinary trucks, conforming to road-worthy dimensions for maximum flexibility.

The company boasts myriad possible uses, from medical clinics and mobile hotels to on-demand offices and private retreats — the sale pitch in the video above is a bit blandly corporate, but the mechanics of the thing unfolding are gorgeous.

Their custom pin-jointed linkages help them open and close easily with minimal energy requirements and using just a single (presumably sonic) screwdriver. They are modular and can be customized with various arrangements of floors, doors, windows and dividers — they can even be shipped with furniture inside.

The company is also experimenting with designs for multi-story structures as well as stackable variants, opening up a whole world of possibilities.

Even the designs show an appealing variety of aesthetic possibilities, including dynamic modern looks and spacious expanding ceilings that go a step beyond typical prefab home possibilities.

Thanks to their variable footings, the units can be put up on uneven or sloped ground, stabilizing to sit flat from the perspective of the occupant.

The buildings can go off the grid but also feature optional attachments for solar panels and batteries, presenting an array of potential power possibilities.

At around 700 square feet and $ 130,000 the base models aren’t cheap, but for someone with the urge to roam they make a pretty stylish and comfortable option for a semi-mobile home.

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Maintaining a legacy or building for mirrorless, who benefits?

23 May
If Canon makes a full-frame mirrorless camera, should they forego some of the potential size benefits to maintain full EF-mount compatibility? And just how compatible would it be?

More than ever, rumors are circulating that Canon and Nikon are finally going to take mirrorless seriously by building full-frame mirrorless cameras. These rumors, which may well turn out to be nonsense, all seem to suggest that these cameras will be built around the companies’ respective DSLR mounts.

It’s an interesting quandary: develop a new, space-efficient mount or stick with your existing system?

I’m going to argue that the right answer is much clearer for a manufacturer than for the end consumer. And I think I can guess which option we’re likely to see.

Supporting your legacy

The benefits of supporting your legacy mount seem obvious: the manufacturer gets to keep selling their existing lenses and the consumer ends up with a huge range of lenses to choose from. Surely there’s no conflict there?

The advantage of all (or most) of an existing system’s lenses being compatible from day one seem overwhelming. Plenty of choice, the ability to sell mirrorless cameras to existing lens owners and no reputational damage. Everybody wins, right?

“There’s a risk of building a system that prioritizes backward compatibility over maximizing performance”

The problem with building a mirrorless camera with a full-depth mount goes deeper (pun intended) than all of your mirrorless models being bigger than necessary. That said, even people who prefer larger cameras are usually referring to grip depth and spacing of controls, rather than demanding their camera has a big box of fresh air in the middle of it, for no functional reason.

A question of focus

No, the bigger issue is that most DSLR lenses aren’t designed for mirrorless. I’m not just talking about some designs being larger than necessary, I’m talking about the use of focus motors that are great for DSLR phase detection but that are woefully clunky when driven using contrast detection AF. Secondary sensor AF, as used and painstakingly optimized for DSLRs is very effective at telling the lens where it needs to move its focus elements to. The ring-type ultrasonic motors used in most high-end DSLR lenses are great at responding to such a command.

Contrast detection asks very different things of its lenses. Instead of racing to a particular point, they need to smoothly scan through their focus range then perform a series of back-and-forth movements to find perfect focus. The result tends to be more accurate but requires a lightweight focus element and a very differently type of focus motor.

The K-01 used a full depth Pentax K mount which gave instant access to lots of lenses. Unfortunately, none of them had really been designed with contrast detection in mind…

The alternative approach: on-sensor phase detection, is in its relative infancy. It may be able to make better use of existing lenses with ring-type motors, but it’s still not clear how well it can interpret significantly defocused scenes.

Also, at present, most on-sensor phase detection information is fed into what are more precisely described as ‘Hybrid’ AF systems: they get very close to focus using phase detection then perform a CDAF hunt to confirm the optimal position. Perhaps this will change, hopefully without the loss of the precision that mirrorless AF tends to excel at, leaving us just with the size disadvantage.

It’s notable that, when it’s trying to build fast-focusing lenses for its mirrorless E-mount, Sony doesn’t tend to use ring-type focus motors. In the case of the 16-35mm F2.8 GM, it uses twin piezoelectric actuators.

Alternatively, of course, there’s a risk of building a system that prioritizes backward compatibility over maximizing performance. It’s noticeable, for instance, that Sony makes very little use of ring-type focus motors in the lenses its developing for the E-mount, despite having experience of using them for its DSLR A-mount.

‘It fits’ isn’t the same as ‘it’s good’

Either way, there’s a risk that we’ll be offered something that fits but doesn’t necessarily work as well as it could.

As an enthusiast photographer with limited lens-buying resources, one of the things that has always irritated me is seeing camera companies produce high-end lenses for their full-frame customers and carefully marketing the idea that this benefits all their users, so they need not develop anything good for their APS-C users. It’s a situation that leaves APS-C users with poor choices and the arguably false impression that by buying these poorly-suited lenses, they’re making progress along an upgrade path (a fallacy that benefits the camera makers more than the photographers).

The decision to adopt a new mount or continue with a legacy one risks the same thing: the appearance of lots of choice when what you’re actually being offered is compromise, and a situation with limited incentive for the manufacturers to dedicate their efforts towards the needs of their mirrorless users. Instead they can produce a lovely picture of their mirrorless camera flanked with 30 years’ worth of lens development and watch as brand loyalists insist that ‘their’ system has the most lenses, regardless of performance.

And this wouldn’t necessarily only apply to existing lenses. Let’s say Manufacturer X needs to develop a new fast 70-200mm F2.8 and the focusing design that would work best for mirrorless turns out to be slower than the one that suits the company’s flagship sports DSLR, which version of the lens do you think we’d see?

Precedent

There is something of a precedent for this. Canon got its reputation badly burned by abandoning its FD mount – something it took some photographers a long time to forgive –whereas Nikon and Pentax pressed on with progressively trying to modernize their 1950s film mounts.

Taking the hard decision arguably left Canon in the better position: the long-term benefit was a wide-throated, all-electronic mount. With the introduction of its latest ‘E’ lenses, Nikon’s venerable F-mount has finally caught up: with autofocus and aperture operated by the lens, but with a complex series of compatibility issues cropping up along the way. And, while they are still using a somewhat restrictively narrow mount at the end of it, they’ve benefited from not having to burn their users on the way (though they arguably handed-off responsibility for understanding the complexities of the F-mount’s development to every user looking to buy lenses).

So what’s the alternative?

Olympus expressly made the E-M1 to provide continued support for its legacy system but also developed the ‘PRO’ range of high-end lenses to make full use of the capabilities of Micro Four Thirds cameras.

The other way of doing things it to develop a dedicated mount and dedicatedly support it. This is the approach that Olympus took with the development of Micro Four Thirds and, to an extent, which Canon has with its EF-M mount. Olympus, along with Panasonic, took the brave step of designing a mirrorless-optimized mount when they developed Micro Four Thirds, rather than trying to press on with Four Thirds. They then offered an adapter to use the older lenses and, with the E-M1 and E-M1 II, developed cameras expressly with the intention of maintaining support for the older, outgoing system. This meant existing customers didn’t get too badly burned and new Micro Four Thirds customers got an increasingly impressive range of native lenses designed for them.

It’ll be interesting to see if Sony takes any pointers from this, as they decide how to support both E and A mounts.

I hope to be proven wrong

Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong in the end. Maybe Canon’s EF-M/EF cross-compatibility will end up reducing the incentives to develop interesting lenses for M series owners, in the same way that I worry sharing a mount would. Equally, perhaps Canon’s Dual Pixel AF (and Nikon’s on-sensor PDAF experience gleaned from its 1-Series cameras) will mean that there ends up being no AF compromise to sharing a mount. It may partly be overcoming this challenge that has led to its camera taking so long to arrive. At which point, using the existing mount would just mean carrying around a camera that’s a little lumpier than it needs to be.

Time, I’m sure, will tell. But, in the meantime, don’t necessarily take at face-value any promises that backwards compatibility is an unalloyed user benefit.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Emoji Facade: Dutch Architects Decorate Brick Building with 22 Smiley Faces

05 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Instead of gargoyles, grotesques or ornate decorative details, this somewhat silly facade expresses an array of emotions through circular icons familiar to anyone with a smartphone or social media account.

Located in suburban Vathorst near Amersfoort, this design by Attika Architekten (images by Bart van Hoek) looks quite conventional at a glance. At each level, horizontal rows of light concrete break up stacks of dark brick and divide the tops and bottoms of windows.

Upon closer inspection, however, the mixed-use project has a detail that varies from one location to the next — round faces featuring a broad range of emotional states and attitudes.

“In classical architecture they used heads of the king or whatever, and they put that on the façade,” explains the architect. “So we were thinking, what can we use as an ornament so when you look at this building in 10 or 20 years you can say ‘hey this is from that year!’.” If nothing else, they seem to have hit that target.

“The cast concrete characters express a range of familiar emoji emotions, including the classic sad and happy styles, the instantly-recognizable kissing face, and the much-loved heart eyes personality.”

Formally speaking, this decor adds a layer of interstitial detail often found in early Modern architecture urban architecture (derived historically from Gothic influences). It adds an element that spans the fine grain of the brick columns and otherwise featureless and monolithic concrete rows.

Whether or not these emoticons will look funny, cool, creative, unique, dated or all of the above in a few decades remains to be seen. Still, it is certainly is a fun way to think about decor in the post-Postmodern world where rote historicism has become a thing of the past.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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