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Tag : commercial photographer

03 Nov 2017
TODD STONE BY BROKAW PHOTOGRAPHY

DO YOU JOURNAL?

I photographed artist, Todd Stone as part of a photo project about the Artists of the Gallows Run.  We talked about journals.

Todd is a well known New York artist, www.toddstone.com.  Todd witnessed, first hand, the destruction of the Twin Towers and rendered it in paintings.  Over the past 16 years he has been witnessing and painting the resurrection.

Todd journals.  It settles his mind and evokes new thoughts and ideas.

Journalling is right up there with mindful meditation as a practice to improve your life.  It’s not just for artists.

Bill@BrokawPhoto.com

31 Oct 2017
FRENCHTOWN BUSINESSES ON GOOGLE EARTH

LEVERAGING GOOGLE EARTH

Marketing is all about engaging the viewer.  The vast majority of what we encounter on line is simply viewed, read or heard. We read posts, look at photos, watch videos and listen to recordings.

But there are always applications emerging that can engage us by allowing us to interact with what we see.  We do more than just look or listen, we take action by zooming and panning and clicking.  This engages our motor functions and stimulates our brains.

One of my favorite applications is Google Earth which lets me fly around the globe, zoom in on areas and check out photos.  Naturally, I want to put my own content out there so I launched a project called Frenchtown 150 to commemorate Frenchtown NJ’s 150th anniversary.

My vision was to generate 150 photos of 150 locations in the borough and put them on Google Earth where viewers could pan and zoom around to explore both visually and spatially.  I recruited a small group of about 20 other talented photographers from my Meetup Group (Frenchtown Photography Meetup ) and assigned them locations to shoot and instructed them on how to post-process and georeference their images. Below is a GIS generated map of the locations for the photographers.

Upon receive the image files I utilized a tool written by programmer, Timothy Whitehead, who works for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  Timothy’s tool allowed me to batch create a KML file with the georeferenced images with I then modified to enable hyperlinking to the image files on my website.  Upon launching the KML file, the photo locations and image files become visible on Google Earth.

Each camera icon below represents a photo which can be viewed upon zooming in or by clicking on the menu of locations to the left of the aerial photo.…

27 Oct 2017
TREES WATER STONE

TREES WATER STONE

Trees Water Stone is a collaborative art event celebrating Solstice in Frenchtown. The intent is to bring artists and photographers together to display and sell their work and enjoy themselves.

Brokaw Photography Studio, Freedom Art and Music Gallery and Joe Ressarts Strasser Art are hosting works by artists and photographers that have a Solstice theme.  The event will happen Saturday and Sunday, December 2nd and 3rd with an artists/photographers reception Saturday evening.  All three sites are within short walking distance of each other in Frenchtown.   Brokaw Photography will host black and white photos depicting the Trees Water Stone theme.  Freedom Art and Music Gallery and Joe Ressarts Strasser art will host artwork.  There will also be a

Solstice bonfire  roaring at Joe’s!

TREES WATER STONE LOCATIONSAerial View of Frenchtown
(click here for interactive Google Map)

Photographers are invited to submit their work to Brokaw Photography for consideration as part of the event.  There are no fees or commissions and all work can be available for sale by the photographers.

Here are the criteria for photography:

All photographs must be in black and white
The photos should celebrate the Earth
Photos of Trees, Water and Stone are encouraged
Unframed, matted or flush mounted photos are preferred over framed pieces
Photographers will hang their work during the week before the show using 3M Command strips
(No hooks or nails)
Photos should be submitted for consideration via email before November 20th
Bill@BrokawPhoto.com
Photos will be juried for inclusion in the show

This is all for love of photography, the Earth and the fun of being part of a collective art event.

 …

27 Oct 2017
COLOR

COLOR?

The world is full of color.  But sometimes we may want to look at it in black and white. Does it work?

The perennial favorite for color watching is fall foliage.  It doesn’t last long.  A couple of weeks.  I wondered if I could create a black and white image of foliage with snap and interest.  It didn’t work.  Black and white leaves? (Am I nuts?)

RIVER FOLIAGE

26 Oct 2017
VINCE PAPALE - PASSION

PASSION

Vince Papale “walked on” to the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1970s and made history.  An unknown 30 year old guy from the neighborhood who never played football decided to try out and became an NFL legend.  Disney even made a movie about him called Invincible.

Vince’s football days are behind him and now he travels the country giving talks and motivating everyone from corporate executives to high school athletes.

Vince’s story is impressive, for sure, but as I photographed him during a recent event, it was obvious to me that it all boils down to passion.  Passion is that driving energy available to all of us.  It’s when desire for an outcome obliterates all doubt and resistance.  As Vince so clearly describes and demonstrates, passion doesn’t just happen.  You cultivate it.

Be passionate.

VINCE PAPALE

VINCE PAPALE

VINCE PAPALE

www.BrokawPhotography.com

 

 

 …

25 Oct 2017
BROKAW PHOTOGRAPHY-FOOD TRUCK EVENT_5

FOOD TRUCK FUN

Like many companies, Promius Pharma annually convenes its people from around the country to bring them together as a team and enhance their focus on the company mission.  And of course the first night is a time for settling in and getting off to a good start with a social event.  This year Promius met at the Crown Plaza in Princeton and decided it would be fun to have food trucks cater the party.

I’ve photographed a lot of corporate events and this one was a blast.  What a great idea. It was relaxed, fun and ever so tasty!

www.BrokawPhotography.com

 …

23 Oct 2017
COLD BREW

COLD BREW

Really cold brew at BioStorage, part of a facility at Rutgers University where they keep stuff on ice (not beer, though).

I’ve photographed a number of sites specializing in cryogenic storage and it’s pretty amazing to see how technology enables us to seriously cool things down and essentially stop the aging process.

Funny, though, when it gets really cold, I certainly don’t feel my aging process slowing down.

www.BrokawPhotography.com

19 Oct 2017
TREATMENT PLANT - BILL BROKAW

INDUSTRIAL GRAPHICS

I don’t often think of the visual graphic appeal of sewage treatment plants.

Actually, I don’t really think of sewage treatment very often, but recently, when on assignment photographing this facility I couldn’t help but notice its visual elegance.

Everything at a treatment plant is designed for a purpose and within this design is a kind of graphic beauty.

I always enjoy photographing engineered structures. Especially when the light is awesome.  Ideally, it works as well as it looks.

TREATMENT PLANT - BILL BROKAW

www.BrokawPhotography.com

17 Oct 2017
GEOIMGR.com

GEOTAGGING ONLINE

Geotagging is fairly easy and is required in order to embed a photo on Google Earth. Geotagging is the process of adding latitude/longitude coordinates to the metadata of a photo.

Some cameras will geotag automatically when you take a photo. However, this is the location of the camera when the photo was taken, not the the location being photographed. For our project, FRENCHTOWN 150, we are adding custom coordinates to our digital files. This can be done a number of ways including Lightroom (see my post PROCESSING AND GEOTAGGING FOR FRENCHTOWN 150 IN LIGHTROOM).

You can also geotag online.

Before uploading your photo to geotag it you need to:

CROP YOUR PHOTO SQUARE
RESIZE IT TO 1200×1200 pixels
LABEL “LOCATION – PHOTOGRAPHER.”
NAME IT “LOCATION – PHOTOGRAPHER.jpg”

When your photo is properly cropped, sized, labelled and named, upload it to geoimgr.com  to geotag it.

The site is fairly intuitive.  Here is a short video of the steps.

13 Oct 2017
FRENCHTOWN 150

WE’RE ALL SPATIAL

Everybody is somewhere. (Whether we know where we are is another question.)  For many businesses, it is all about location, location, location.  Where you are matters.

When it comes to commercial photography, the images produce often are created to show the feel and character of a business’s location.  This also is true for business communities, like Frenchtown, NJ, that rely on visitors.

Digital photography allows us to tag our files with latitude/longitude coordinates and on-line tools, such as Google Earth can read these coordinates and position the images in their exact location on a map.

So as an experiment (and to push the spatial envelope) I launched my latest project called Frenchtown 150.  I am coordinating a group of photographers to create a comprehensive visual and on-line spatial representation of Frenchtown to celebrate its 150th year anniversary and show just what it is like, now, in October 2017.

The first step was to generate a properly scaled map of all the proposed photo locations using GIS software (ArcView) as shown above.  150 locations were plotted ranging from forest trails to downtown businesses.

Step two will be to corral the photographers, instruct them on the project parameters, and then have them shoot the photos and tag them with coordinates.

The final step will be to compiled all the geotagged images on Google Earth which will enable users to fly in and view the photos on a three dimensional map of the Earth.  The photo below is an actual screen shot of Google Earth showing one of the embedded business photos floating above it’s actual location.

CITGO ON GOOGLE EARTH

I can see this being applicable for many businesses, whether a single location or multi locations.  We’ve got the tools out there.  Let’s use them.

www.BrokawPhotography.com