Mark Hayes Photography

Put have you seen the keynote presentation on iPhone?

iPhone

For what I usually use, this thing really makes my Treo look old fashioned.   It's going to be big.

Apple TV: yeah that looks cool as well.  Much nicer than having to wire my iPod up if I want to watch something I got off iTunes.

And to top it off with Apeture having a direct upload feature to iStock I'm really thinking about looking at a Macbook or something just to handle that part of my photo management.

Being a Microsoft network administrator it's tough to admit it, but dang Apple is making some great strides into the everyday market and not just the overpriced graphic professional workstation circles. 

Blizzard 2006

Three weeks after the Holiday blizzard and now I get stuck this morning.

I started parking my Bronco out on the street so my wife could have the reserved spot directly in front of our townhouse (spot shown in this picture before it was shovelled out) for the car. 

The spot on the street is tough to get into and out of even with the Bronco.  I still need to hit 4x4 to get in and out of it as it consists of about three car lengths of lightly packed snow on the curb with about 2 feet of packed/plowed ice on the front/back and street side.    There's an are where the ice/snow is low enough that with a running start I can pop in and out of the area.

Well this morning just as I was about to hit my spot a car comes fishtailing out of the townhouses on the other side of the street.   To avoid running over them I can't cut and end up riding up on the deeper ice until I'm totally stuck.  

Seriously high centered it's off to get the metal shovel and start digging the ice loose that's under the middle of the vehicle and holding it up.

And we're expecting more snow Thursday through Saturday.

OK, since it wasn't a stock photo I can't really show off this series on iStock so this is the next best place.

Series of back cover shots from an in house publication, fairly large circulation, each dealing with a different person with animals type shot.

The first one we did was men with cats - granted we have many more creative tag lines for this shoot, but men with cats is what we used officially.

Fall06

What's the nerdiest thing about you?

I STILL table top RPG from time to time.  Been with the same gaming group for 15+ years now.  AD&D, Shadowrun, a few others.

ALL the members of my gaming group also are on City of Heroes, and online game. 

After just over a year shooting stock and I'm still learning to see as a designer. 

Cute Kitten

A few weeks back I did a series of shots  with a 5 week old kitten in a foster care program (being cared for by staff until he's old enough to be adopted).  Lots of great shots, and this was my favorite from the batch.

Showed him playful, kitten-ish, active.  Just a nice shot all around.

But flatlined as far as sales go.

Cute Kitten

This shot on the other hand is screaming on the sales.  If this even comes close to keeping up it will be in flames well before the end of the year.  Even had a nice extended license sale on it yesterday.

So what does this tell me? 

The cute and playful is nice, but the cat looking at "something" towards that corner is what designers want.  Granted I STILL like the other photo better, but at least I see why this one sells better.  Now all I have to do is be able to remember this lesson as I'm shooting and target this type of thing instead of as I'm looking at the sales reports after a month. 

FYI, I know somewhere on iStock they mention pet shots and don't think highly of collars and tags, but working in a humane society any photo we use (and we buy a lot of stuff from iStock) either has to have a collar and tag or needs to be added in photoshop after the fact.  When you deal with thousands (and thousands) of lost cats each year - no ID tags sends a bad message, ID tags sends a good message.

What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?

Any math class - most science.

In college I really enjoyed my economics classes - mostly because of the riviting instructor.

Turn away

Sometimes when I'm shooting for stock I like to try and take a different look at a subject.  Late last summer I picked some wild sunflowers growing along a country road and brought them back to the house for some shots.   Have several nice shots, lots of detail, but this is my favorite of the group. I love the detail on the back stem. 

Of course it's also one of the first shots to tell me that what I like and what will sell are two entirely different things.   This week the file became elegible for the dollar bin, maybe it will wind up there or maybe since it's never been sold as RF I'll just pull the image and add it to my RM collection. 

What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?

Various collected works of AC/DC and RUSH are topping out my playlist right now.

 

 

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

Coffee - strong - with cream.  This isn't a choice it's manditory!