What's the point of exhibitons?

I'm wondering for quite some time about that. Yeah I know, it should be a promotion for the photographer yada, yada...But can you really get noticed out of that countless exhibitions that are taking place around Slovenia? And with all the photo galleries and photoblogs that you can find on the web?!

A lot of people said I should have my own, independent exhibition. But I've never been fond of the idea. I'm not 100% sure why. Probably because, as you can see, I can't see the full promotional potential in it and on the other hand also because it's quite a project just organising it. You usually have to pay for all the expanses as well (prints, frames, food&drinks...).

Besides that, a decision about which photos are going to be on exhibition and also why, has to be made. What do you want to show people with them. Usually you come out with more than just one option, then you have to decide what's best to show people. I think that's more important than just showing your best photos.

I did participate on a few collective exhibitions and none of them, except one brought me promotion. The one that did, was the exhibition of the best polet covers. This was my last polet cover and also the last polet cover with a nude photo on it. And the only photo that was published on the cover twice. Ok, now we got to the part that brought me some promotion, that was (besides a few photo of me in the newspapers and on the TV) the article about the exhibition and the photo of the polet editor standing besides my photograph, which most of the people liked best.

But is this somehow measurable? I know quite a few photographers that are about my age or younger that had an independent exhibition or two. I don't think any of them got any real promotion, benefit of their exhibitions.

I'm going to wrap it up now. It's not a problem of organisation for me. I already talked about that around six month ago with an owner of a nice, with a tweak or two suitable for exhibitions, pub. Money is not an object as well. It's just that I don't see a clear benefit for me. I think I get more promotion from publishing my photos on magazine covers (and I get some promotion for publishing my photos on the web and in various magazines as well).

So tell me, what do you think about it? Are the exhibitions worth while, generally (for you, me, other photographers...)?

I really want to read your thoughts on that...

How much is your blog worth?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? I didn't, but I immediately became interested when a friend of mine told me, my blog could be rated. Nowadays that you hear about major multinationals buying sites for millions or even billions of $ (Google bought youtube for 1.65 billion $), it makes you wonder what fraction of that could you possibly make, if there was a remote possibility someone wanted to acquire your blog.

Here's what mine is worth:

My blog is worth $20,323.44.
How much is your blog worth?

You can check out how much your blog is worth here.


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Lens baby 3G preview

I'm going to write the full review with more samples over on slo-foto.net, so I'm going to show you a few samples, so you can see what's the catch with this funny little lens. It's not only it's rather interesting appearance that draws attention, the results can be pretty interesting too. I confess, I didn't take enough time to master it, so I won't show you any masterpieces. I was to slow at manual focusing and sweet spot adjusting to make any good portraits, I missed all the interesting expressions, failed to capture the model's mood, energy etc. So what are you going to see below, is a visual presentation of what this lens can do. Pretty much an average test and tests usually include pretty boring pics...


Notice how everything white on the photos above and below gets blown to high heaven (eg blown out or as usually named it has a lot of hot spots). Nikon's JPG dynamic range really sucks. And it doesn't matter if it was taken with its flagship camera (D2Xs).In the lower photo the sweet spot is best represented.



If you look carefully and have a decent DOF knowledge, you'll see how this photo differs from those taken with regular lenses. Sneakers would be in the "DOF line" (90 degrees angle according to the lens, both vertically and horizontally)if it was taken with a normal lens. Here you can see what's in focus, eg where the sweet spot is

Moving up to the next blogging level

I've decided to make step up and move my blog on an independent server in the near future and it's going to be wordpress based. That also means I'm going to buy my own domain name. Why have I made a decision like that, you ask? Because I want my blog to look better, to provide a good user experience in not so many words, to make it more pleasant and professional.

The second reason to do it, is to increase my ad revenues. I've been doing pretty well so far, I've earned enough in the past 8 months to buy me a 30D (which I intend to buy in a month or so). With all the improvements I hope to gain on traffic, which leads to more cliks on the ads, that are displayed on my site, which ofcourse leads to higher revenues. I'll try adding a few ad networks and/or affiliate programs. Because like the Dot com mogul John Chow says, monetizing of a blog is way more than slapping on a couple of google ads. That's just the beginning.

When the migration to a url will be complete, I'll try to automatically redirect visitors to my new site. That way you won't have any trouble finding it, or following the links. And I'll still get traffic from numerous sites that are linking to my blog.

My first Ona Cover by Nikon

D200+85 1.4.

Kesh peechka

BLING, BLING! Euro bills get that special glow in her hands...

What a feeling!

Kesh Peechka's greatest joy...

She can never get enough of it...


And at the end, sponsor gets his reward:D



At the end let me just write, that Špela really got into her role. She was great, she has the passion, energy, that's definitely needed for this kind of sessions. And that's what most models lack - passion!

Another lensbaby snapshot&preview of today's session

I'll post more from today's session tomorrow, I've got to run, because a friend of mine is throwing a bday party...