[ciaran]

April 11, 2011 at 12:12 pm

Congrats on the acceptance :)

The procedure is pretty simple. First and foremost, it is YOUR responsibility to keep track of your own acceptances. So you need a spreadsheet that tracks what images are submitted to what salons and in which ever countries. Each salon has a unique FIAP identifier and this is what identifies the salon.

Title every image uniquely and if you submit it to a different salon, you must use the same title.

The official rules can be found on the IPF website: http://irishphoto.ie/wp-content/plugins/downloads-manager/upload/FIAP_Distinctions_%282009-304E%29.pdf

You can only apply for a distinction once a year, so applications are made through the FIAP representative (a member of the IPF council) in February. Once you are ready to apply, download and fill out the spreadsheet on the FIAP website http://www.fiap.net/pdf/DistAE-Form-en.xls

In short for the AFIAP distinction, which is the first

a) Your first acceptance must have been least a year before applying for the distinction
b) You have to have at least 30 acceptances
c) You have to have had acceptances from at least 10 different images
d) You must have acceptances from at least 10 different salons
e) You must have acceptances from at least 5 different countries.

For the EFIAP (the second distinction)

a) Your must have held your AFIAP distinction for at least a year
b) You have to have at least 150 acceptances
c) You have to have had acceptances from at least 50 different images
d) You must have acceptances from at least 30 different salons
e) You must have acceptances from at least 15 different countries.

Acceptances from your AFIAP count towards your EFIAP.

I blog pretty regularly about the various salons I submit to. Most recently I gave a detailed breakdown of my AFIAP distinction (http://www.thewonderoflight.com/articles/?p=2218) and you can see a gallery of all the images making up that distinction here: http://www.thewonderoflight.com/galleries/v/IPF/

If you have any questions after all that, drop me a mail and I’ll be glad to help.

[ciaran]

January 30, 2011 at 10:08 am

It is unfortunate you’ve lost the hand going to the cap, but leaving that aside, as a portrait this is superb. Love the toning and contrast.

[ciaran]

January 30, 2011 at 10:05 am

Thanks everyone, especially for the detailed comments and crit :)

i-media wrote:

Excellent shot and may I say a beautiful model. Can help but get drawn to the triangle shaped skin tone above her lip…. but excellent all the same

You mean her parafiltrum? There is no “pixel” pushing done in this shot. The colouring is applied globally with one colour added to the shadow detail and another to the highlights. So what ever shift you guys are seeing under her nose is down to natural shadows and this tone mapping.

I appreciate the feedback

[ciaran]

January 27, 2011 at 3:45 pm

First one is pretty close to being super… I’d pull back the processing/contrast just a touch.

The second one doesn’t work for me at all. Technically it’s fine, but it feels very staged and the subject looks SO stiff.

[ciaran]

November 25, 2009 at 1:30 pm

bingbongbiddley wrote:

Yeah, ISO Auto is great – it just takes one more thing out of the equation that you don’t have to worry about. You can concentrate on composition etc.

Actually I’d suggest that it actually adds a complication to the equation rather than taking something out of it. The fact that it can vary means you really do need to concern yourself with what the camera is choosing to do. Setting it manually takes it out of the equation, because it is now a fixed value.

[ciaran]

November 25, 2009 at 11:16 am

richiehatch wrote:

I also find our very own (can I say that…??? :lol: ) Ciaran Whyte’s blog very interesting… Its very well put together and really informative…! Thanks Cairan…!

http://www.thewonderoflight.com/articles/

Thanks for the plug :D

richiehatch wrote:

On that point does anyone know if Ciaran holds the record for going through the IPF distinctions…? He went from his L panel in April 2008 to his A and then F in April this year….! Thats a serious achievement…!

I’m not sure the IPF actually keeps a record of who sits what distinction and when.. certainly not going back over it’s entire history (but maybe I’m wrong??). I know in recent years the administration of the distinctions has greatly improved and to the benefit of all distinction holders. Anyway from talking to one or two people that have been involved in the IPF for quite some time, I believe it’s the first time it’s been done. It wasn’t my goal or intention to do it to break any records. I was actually against distinctions when I joined our club, but unfortunately to move into the premier grade for our internal competitions, one of the criteria is that a person must hold at least an LIPF.

So I did my LIPF, enjoyed the process and the day and the rest is history :)

[ciaran]

November 25, 2009 at 10:56 am

Very late in the day to be congratulating you… sorry!

But a belated congrats none the less :D

[ciaran]

September 8, 2009 at 6:21 pm

Smashing tones, sharpness, exposure and just an all round excellent capture. Some of the blacks are a little blocked up, which may hurt you if you’re going to print this big. Wonderful shot.

[ciaran]

September 2, 2009 at 10:53 am

miki g wrote:

As far as I know it’s 800px on the long side, even though some people do post bigger.

I would disagree, I think 800 is too small for most people to view these days. I think historically people used to post smaller images because people had smaller monitors running on smaller resolutions. For me, I post at least 1024px on the X and 800 on the Y.

[ciaran]

September 1, 2009 at 8:44 pm

I’m a lazy git, which means if I have to do anything more than once, I’ll automate it; hence my actions

http://www.thewonderoflight.com/misc/CiaransActions.atn

As Lorraine said, I recently downloaded the portraiture plugin and have been playing with that. So far the results have been very positive. It’s not cheap, but I think the quality of the output justifies the cost. Like anything, processing has to be applied sympathetically for it to be effective. As for the original post, it is too small to see in detail, but the blurring looks very OTT to me.

[ciaran]

July 26, 2009 at 5:33 pm

nfl-fan wrote:

If an amateur is getting work over a pro then that’s simply competition. I mean who decides what “too cheap” is and how many factual cases of “they shot themselves in the foot and went bust by charging too little” that we keep hearing people talking of do we actually know of?

If someone wants to charge for something on the cheap then that’s their choice. If they want to start low, build a reputation and gradually increase their prices then why not? I’d have thought that this is a pretty sensible and logical approach.

I have no idea what you do for a living nfl? Certainly from your response, my guess is you’ve never been involved in owning or running a business?

I have my own business, which was founded in 2002. It’s a services business, completely unrelated to photography, but it has a lot of things in common with it in a business sense of view. My customers hire me to provide a servic and the fact is any Joe Soap could pretty much go out on their own and do the same thing. You asked how many factual cases do we know of, of people shooting themselves in the foot? Well in my case, in the 7 years we have been in business, I know of 5 companies that set up to provide the same services as my company. All charged way below market rates and all are now gone bust (for numerous reasons, not just their pricing).

Selling a service based solely on cost is a road to a hiding! If you’re getting customers just because you’re cheap, then the only thing the next Joe Soap has to do, is do it cheaper. It’s not competition.. it’s madness. The one thing a business has to be is sustainable. So pricing has to be realistic.

[ciaran]

July 26, 2009 at 9:25 am

A lot of the softness is probably down to the fact you’re shooting at too slow a shutter speed, so you’re getting camera shake.

Hand holding 1/50 at 55mm focal length (in reality that’s 80mm because of the crop) you’re in the danger region. As a guideline your shutter speed should always be at least 1/focal length to avoid camera shake. Obviously this is a guideline.. someone people have steadier and indeed shakier hands than others.

[ciaran]

July 26, 2009 at 9:06 am

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=dublin+strobist

[ciaran]

July 25, 2009 at 5:06 pm

nfl-fan wrote:

What I find strange is the manner is which people get a bit uppity here when someone comes along looking for someone to do a photo job on the cheap.

Yet… if you wanted a few blocks laid, a damaged partition wall plastered, a leaky pipe fixed you’d have no problem asking a professional blocker layer/plasterer/plumber to do a nixer.

Amazes me how the ‘arty farty’ bit of photography can lead some egos astray.

I don’t blame the consumer for wanting the professional to offer discount rates… I do blame the professional for agreeing to do so.

Amateur photographers, (of which I am one) that offer non commercial rates for commercial work, do no one any favours. For one, they are taking work away from the hard working full time professional photographers who simply can’t afford to discount down to a hobbyists nixers rates. But it also damages the hobbyist. So many amateur photographers have aspirations of going professional and if or when they do, their earlier discounted pricing will have shot them selves in the foot. Their existing customer base will want a continued discounted rate, which won’t sustain a business and if they try to increase it, the customers will go off and find the next hobbyist willing to part with an image for tuppance.

An image should have an intrinsic value, regardless of who it is taken by. If you charge well below this rate.. worse fool you.

[ciaran]

July 25, 2009 at 1:45 pm

As has been pointed out, a polariser can help cut down on reflections, but it’s not necessary. Watching the angle of light v.s where you shoot from can help reduce or even eliminate reflections completely. So in short you don’t NEED a filter.