artalicious

This is a bit of a brag post, because Robert has 5 pieces in an upcoming art show! As you can see from the postcard at right, it's called All Small Redux, and is in Agnes Scott's Dalton Gallery (my alma matter).

Here's a brief synopsis from their website:

"All Small Redux returns to the premise of the acclaimed 2002 exhibition, all small@eyedrum—that the exquisite and completely petite nature of small works can be overwhelmingly mighty.

In this time of downsizing, low returns, minimal output and small budgets, it is refreshing to celebrate the fabulous preciousness of the tiny.

All Small Redux adds into the fold the world of micro fiction.

Works at or under six inches, sixty seconds or one-hundred and eight words will be reviewed for possible inclusion in the exhibit."

I think that a total of around 50 artists are in the show, including our friends Nell Ruby and Jennifer Young. The opening is February 12, from 5-8. If you look on the postcard, on the last row, three over from the left, that's one of Robert's pieces! Let me see if I can find some larger photos of pieces. Here are my two favorites. They're lighter than in the photos, as the concrete was still damp when he took these pictures.

His concept is creating a modern fossil, basically taking bits of technology (wires, cables, cds, cell phones, computer mice, etc). Then embedding them in concrete and cutting them up into slices. They're lovely to look at and really interesting as many of them are almost unrecognizable from their original forms. This is a perfect project for him as he loves both fossils and technology. I'll probably need to have him write up a bit about this as he can explain it better than I can.

~JML

Posted in: art show, Robert Hill, sculpture on January 29, 2009 at at 10:36 AM 3 comments    

I just started a stock inspiration binder. I'm going through our stack of magazines and pulling out images that are fantastic.

So far, I've come up with the following categories:

1) Models - this is actually going to be a reference for the models we work with. These are photos that have interesting poses and perhaps most importantly, interesting emotions. A lot of inexperienced models want to start out with that sort of blank "model face" that see a lot of in high fashion images. While that look has its place, in stock, it's much more preferred for the model to be expressing some emotion, even if done subtly. Though I just realized that in the example below, one model is giving the model face. But the pose is nice.



2) Ideas for People - these are images that contain interesting concepts, angles or crops of shots with people in them. I hope these will serve as a reminder to us to try some different kind of shots.



3) Ideas for Still Life - these are images of food or settings without people in them. I'd like to eventually do at least one stock shoot a week, and these can fill in the times when we can't schedule a model. Both of these come from Fine Cooking magazine, which is FILLED with beautiful photography (thanks for the subscription Mum!).



4) Animals - we have lots of them! Might as well put them to work!



5) Vectors - Here are images that inspire me to try some different illustration techniques/styles and subject matter. Good vectors are some of our best sellers and are an area that we've been lacking in lately. I hope that as this section grows, I'll set aside the time to work on more of these. I like this as it's a style I haven't tried out before.



This binder isn't meant to be a book of images that we go through and try to replicate (well, maybe the general model poses will be copied from), but rather almost as a text book, to help us learn what creates better, more salable images.

And, for the heck of it since I'm adding images, a gratuitous glamor shot of Aggie. She's so majestic.



~JML

Posted in: Aggie, inspiration, Stock Images on January 28, 2009 at at 10:49 AM 3 comments    

I think I've mentioned on here that Robert and I submit photos and illustrations to various micro stock sites.

*Warning, the following may be very boring if you have no interest in stock photography.*

For those whose eyes just glazed over, a micro stock site, is a place like Shutterstock, where people (mostly graphic designers) buy royalty free images for between $1-$50. They are different from the macro stock sites (Getty Images being probably the largest and most well known) where images are sold as either royalty free or rights managed and typically prices start around $100 and go WAY up from there.

The other difference is that most macro stock sites (like Getty) hire professional photographers, models, make-up artists, stylists, etc. While the mirco stock sites (like Shutterstock) have photographers and illustrators go through an application process, and then accept the images that they feel are up to their standards. Which means if you're not very good, they're not going to take very many of your photos. It also means that if you're an amateur, this is a good way to make a little money while improving your skills.

Both micro and macro stock agencies pay their photographers some set amount per image sale. This fee ranges for anywhere from .25 to several hundred dollars. The most we've ever earned on one photo for one sale was $28. And that only happened once!

Now that's an incredibly simple description of how stock sites work. I could go on and on, but 1) that would be boring and 2) I'm also no where near an expert in this area.

Ok, so boring explanation over, here's some of what Robert and I have been doing in the studio lately. Mainly we've been working with different models and perfecting taking portraits over a white background. These are useful to designers, as the white background ads a lot of versatility to the image. When we first started out taking photos of models, we didn't have the set up we have now, so we had to hunt around for backgrounds. This meant we have a lot of photos like this:


And it means that these don't sell very well. She's a pretty girl, but her outfit and her setting aren't clearly selling or stating anything. Compare it to this image, which can sell just about anything, by photographer Yuri Arcurs (who, by the way, is probably the top selling micro stock photographer out there):


See the difference? Now that's not to say that images without a white background will sell like crap. They don't, but the background needs to support the overall look and message of the image. Something that our random bricks weren't doing.

So now that we have a "for real" set up, I'm hoping that images like this one:


Will earn more sales. The model above, by the way, is one of our favorites to work with. She's got a great personality and is so comfortable in front of the camera. Two great qualities when you're spending 3 hours locked in an 11x19 foot studio with someone!

The other kind of image that sell really well (and that I need to make more of) are vector illustrations. They're great because designers can pull them apart, edit them, scale them to any size, etc. Our top selling vector illustration is this one:


It's not sexy, but it's handy and it's earned over $100 since it's been accepted at various stock sites.

So our goals for this year are to shoot, shoot, shoot, edit, edit, edit and illustrate whenever we can. I've currently got a backlog of at least 500 images to go through (of which probably only 70-100 will be stock-worthy, and of those, probably only 50-60 will be accepted by the sites we submit to).

The sites that we currently work with are: Shutterstock, Big Stock Photo, and Dreamstime. I'm in the process of getting us accepted and set up with a host of other sites. I really need to get us going with iStock.

Ok, I'm stocked out for now. I need to get back to practicing some fine art. I'll be thinking more about that in the coming days.

~JML

Posted in: Big Stock Photo, Dreamstime, Getty Images, Illustration, iStock, Models, Portraits, Robert Hill, Shutterstock, Stock Images, Studio on January 14, 2009 at at 10:12 AM 2 comments    

I thought I would put up some images that we've been taking in the studio (and by "we" I mean "mostly Robert").

First, we had an open house of sorts with all of the other studios and the gallery. We took holiday portraits for anyone who was brave enough to step in front of the camera, and there were some fantastic results!

Here's a great one of our friends' kid hamming it up. When I asked her if he practiced this a lot at home, she looked at me and said she's never seen him dance like this before!



Then we got this cute image (which I took, not too bad I think!):



We also took a holiday portrait for our friends, Katie and Rhiannon with their dogs, O'Malley and Oliver. There was much waving of toys and shaking of treats and wearing of antlers (on the dogs). They went with this one for their holiday card.

We then thought it would be a great idea to traumatize our own dogs, so we brought them over to the studio and made them do embarrassing things with holiday decorations. No animals were harmed during this photo shoot, but I can't say the same for the decorations.

Here's Keira, plotting our demise as soon as this is over.


Aggie gets pissed off. Keira hits the floor.


All is soon forgiven. Much kissy face is seen.


They make up over a meal of holiday garland. Lovely. I launch myself at them to make sure they don't swallow any. Damn dogs.


The rest of the images can be found by clicking here. We ended up picking 4 different photos and printed them out with funny captions and put those in our holiday cards.

Next up will be some of our model photos we've taken for stock.

~JML

Posted in: Animals, Dogs, Holidays, Katie, Kids, Portraits, Rhiannon, Robert Hill, Studio on January 12, 2009 at at 1:15 PM 3 comments    

Well, one thing I would like to do more is post more about art that I made this year. To start that off, here's an illustration of sorts that I've been working on.

I'd like to modify it enough to try and screen print it in one and two colors with my (new since Nov.) screen printing kit.

Right now it's got too many colors and screens to do that, but I think I can work with it. I'm also going to keep working on the letters and such a bit more. It's not quite done.

In other news, Robert and I did get the studio space. We've had it since late October and we really like it. It's allowed us to move a lot of the "art stuff" out of the house, plus it's let Robert set up a seamless white background for stock photography purposes.

We're now using SmugMug to host galleries of client photos and I'm really happy with it. Now I need to make sure we start to make money off of it to justify the yearly fee!

~JML

Posted in: Illustration, New Year, Robert Hill, Studio on January 9, 2009 at at 11:35 AM 2 comments