02 February, 2012

Status Update...

If we are friends on Facebook you may have noticed over the past few days, sometime in the afternoon (depending on feasibility), I've been posting one never before seen photograph. I will continue to do this over the entire month of February, each business day. Leading up to the 29th of February when I will be giving an invitation only, discussion on Architectural Photography, including a live shoot out. 
My goal is to showcase a wide range of styles, not just design styles but photography styles. With my unique and diverse design background, I am consistently influenced on a shoot by what the Designer or Architect has created. I want to be sensitive to the mood of a space and try to reflect that through the composition, scale and lighting captured in that photograph. 


This was yesterday's Facebook post:


Interior Design: Douglas Truesdale
Styling: Kyle Hoepner for New England Home
Click to see the featured article in New England Home Magazine this shot was a part of.


Two things I want to point out; one is the "watermark" or credit that I feel has been discretely placed on the image, in a position that hopefully prevents anyone from cropping out this vital information because frankly I have become increasingly frustrated by bloggers and users of Pinterest (and other social networking sites) whom never give proper credit. While I can personally name several dozen bloggers who take the time to do the background work necessary to properly credit photographs, you know who you are and I applaud and respect you for that. However the trend recently has been to credit "via Pinterest" if any credit is given at all. 


This image is the culmination of many different elements and there is a tremendous amount of thought and TIME that goes into creating beautiful spaces like this one and they should receive proper credit. And I'm not just talking about the photographer here, I'm more so talking about the Architect or Designer, they are the ones who spent countless design meetings with their clients! Not the social media person gawking over someone's private residence...


R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The second thing, is the status update in and of itself. I am generally never in my studio during the day and spend quite some time working at night, either processing images, writing blogs, returning emails, or preparing my status updates. Yes I spend time thinking about what I am going to say, sometime knowing where I am going to be the next day on a shoot, I'll think about situations that could make for interesting status updates, primarily though what makes the status update work is my smart phone. Before posting this image: I first contacted both Douglas and Kyle to let them know it would be on Facebook, second I added the watermark, and then emailed the photo to myself. Using my iPhone I saved the photo in my iPhone's photo album. Lastly in that email I wrote out the text for the status update. So when I felt there was an opportunity during my shoot yesterday, I opened my Facebook app on my iPhone, clicked update status/image, clicked on the image that was saved in my iPhone's photo library and then copy and pasted the text. All of this took about 60 seconds. It was all the time I spent the night before that allowed me to showcase a wonderful photograph during the day, hopefully inspiring and keeping me in the minds of all of my Facebook friends.


Warm Regards,

Michael

4 comments:

Bruce Barone said...

You are a good man, Micheal J Lee!

Michael J Lee said...

Thank you sir! It was your thoughtful "water marking" that inspired me. One can protect their work and still maintain the beauty of the photograph.

Origami Architect said...

This is a wonderful image, but we "share" these on Facebook?

Michael J Lee said...

Lynn, Yes posts are sharable on Facebook, but when you share someone else's post, the "origins" of the post remain. Keeping credit where credit is due...