However, after looking back through my photos from 2009, I quickly realized that I wasn’t that much less efficient. So, on that front, here is a different look at my photos from 2010, by the numbers (note, this excludes all photos taken of Matthew in the past 4 months…that would skew things too much!):

• Percentage of photo taken that were fully processed and published online: 4.5%  (in 2009, I had processed & published 6.2%)
• Of my photos published in 2010, here is the breakdown by gear used:
  • Canon 5D Mark II: 100%  (I didn’t include all my iPhone photos as I don’t import them into Lightroom)
  • Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L: 34%
  • Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II: 24%
  • Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS: 11%
  • Canon EF 24-105 f/4L IS: 7%
  • Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS + 1.4x EF Extender II: 7%
  • Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro: 7%
  • Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II: 6%
  • Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 100mm f/2.0: 3%
  • Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS: 1%
  • Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS + 1.4x EF Extender II: .4%

(Note: by renting lenses from BorrowLenses, I was able to use such a diverse set of lenses through the year)

This makes for an interesting analysis of how frequently you use your gear.  Of course, if the photos you take with your least use lens sells the most…

In the end, it doesn’t diminish the personal satisfaction we find every time we press the shutter button. Even if we are the only ones that see most of those images…

So, what did your 2010 look like by the numbers?

Photographers have already photographed everything too many times, except cheese.

That is one of the many great quotes about photography that I have collected over the years, and one that you might have seen appear once or twice in the sidebar of my blog under Inspiring Words.

A few years ago, I started a photography related internet service called FocalPower.  The goal was to build a photo sharing service that filled a number of the holes in the online photo sharing industry.  As way to get the name out across the Nets, we invested some programing elbow grease in solving another personal pain point I had at the time: how to store my list of photography quotes on line and share them via my website.  We created a photo quote database and a bit of web code (a widget) that pulled a random quote from the database and displayed it on your website or blog.

Fast forward a few years and FocalPower the service hit the uneven tracks that derail a lot of boot strapping startups…and never got out of alpha.  However, the FocalPower quote database and widget still survives and both are continuing their organic growth.  The database archive contains over 700 photography related quotes thanks to myself and a number of other quote contributors.  The quote widget is still deployed at 1000′s of sites and delivering close to half a million quotes a month.

But this has lead me to consider what to do with the FocalPower Photo Quotes Archive.  While I enjoy hosting the service and find value in it myself, I figure there has to be more value that it could be providing to the wider photographic community…and so I’m asking: What would you find more valuable from the FocalPower Quote Archive and Widget?

Do you have your own secret stash of photography related quotes?  How would you like to share them with the world?

How would you like to tap into and leverage the Photo Quotes Archive  on your own blog or website?  What things do you wish it would do that it doesn’t do today?

Do you even care about a Photo Quote Archive available online?  (looking for the good and the bad here…)

I’ll be collecting this feedback over the next month or so and will see what are the most dominant threads.  I’ll then look into the feasibility of incorporating some of those ideas and expanding the current FocalPower.

I appreciate your thoughts!  And would appreciate it if you pointed other photographers here to share their ideas as well.  If you’re a current user of FocalPower, I also appreciate your continued patronage!

PS: someday I should writeup a post mordem on the FocalPower Service and some lessons learned about the photo sharing SaaS business model and world…until then feel free to contact me directly if interested.

This evening I wheeled our garbage can out to the curb, it probably contained over 50 diapers from the past week. And unfortunately, each one will live in a landfill for the next 500 years.

I then came across a TV program on CNBC called Trash Inc. – The Secret Life of Garbage. Very informative (yet frightening) information about what happens to everything in that garbage can sitting out on my curb.  Did you know that:

• the NYC budget for the Department of Sanitation (aka NYC Garbage Men) is over a billion dollars a year…$1B+.
• while we have problems with garbage here in the United States that only 60% of the garbage in Beijing is ever collected.  And who knows what that number is from other parts of China.
• there are five (5) country or continent sized garbage zones in the worlds oceans that contain the refuse that washes down the worlds streams and rivers.  Plastic with Korean writing can be found on beaches in Hawaii.

As a naturalist, landscape photographer, and citizen of the planet I recommend that you check out this program.  It will make you sit back and think.  Think about what you consume on a daily basis.  Think about how we treat the things we produce as a world economy.  Think about the impact that our consumption and garbage has on the planet.

A positive note is that a young photographer from Beijing photographed the city’s trash problem over the past few years and his photos have helped raise awareness to the issue.  How many times have you been out photographing in nature and encountered trash?  I know I usually pack out a good amount of other’s people’s trash on every hiking trip I do.

While my family’s recycling can is as large as our garbage can (and typically fuller) I know we could be doing better.  What about your family?

Peggy’s comments on this are right in line with my own feelings and why I sometimes answer that question in less than a courteous manner.  I was really grateful to hear such a photography centric (the act of photography) topic on Perspectives.  But what most caught me off guard was the way that the on air announcer introduces and wrapped up the segment.  He started off by introducing Peggy as a “Professional Photographer”.  Then, as is the norm for Perspectives, he wrapped up reiterating who the commentator was, what they did for a living, and what city they lived in.  Here is was “Peggy Hansen is a XYZ and a Professional Photographer…”.   I can’t recall her other occupation, but it was obvious the key source of her income and what allows her to be a photographer…just like myself and many others I know.  (Sadly these comments were part of the live broadcast and not part of the recording available on line.)

This is what caught me off guard.  I’m not sure if it was Peggy who chose what the wrap sentence was, or if that was done by KQED.  But it got me to thinking (again) on what does it mean to be a “Professional” Photographer.  I get asked this question a lot when people see my work, “Are you a Professional Photographer?”.  Historically this meant, this is how I make my living…it pays the bills and feeds the family.

Not so any more in the world of multiple streams of income and interests.  Today, I think this refers more to one’s skill set as a photographer. It may not fully pay the bills, but one can create professional quality photographic work thanks to their skill with the camera (and increasingly with the computer).

So, is the professionalism of both one’s works and how they are presented what defines a Professional Photographer today?

[This Perspective was from Greg Lato, a Professional Photographer who makes his living in Technology Sales and lives in San Ramon, CA.]

[For full disclosure, the only photographer related posts I have read about the iPad as of this writing was G Dan Mitchell's.]

The first thing to keep in mind is the market segment that the iPad is designed for: the consumer. Meaning it has a specific set of uses and is designed around those uses.  This is not a device that you will use for editing photos out in the field, it doesn’t have the horsepower designed for this type of task.

The next immediate thought for photographers is: can I use it as a image tank?  Possibly.  If you buy the 64 GB version, you could use it for this, but only for the smallest of photo shoots.  And you would have to buy an adapter to transfer the photos to the iPad.  I recently upgraded my MBP to a 500 GB hard drive as I was running out for space for photos during long trips.  64 GB, 500 GB.  Nuf said.

What I do see the iPad excelling at from a photographer’s end user perspective:  a killer portable portfolio.  From this aspect, the iPad is the Masarati of photo frames.  The ability to showcase your work to new clients or existing clients in style…impressive.  The ability to do it on the fly at any time the iPad is with you…priceless.  So if you buy an iPad as a photographer, make sure you have a collection of your work on the iPad at all times.  (Personally, I’m not all that excited about iPhoto being the key application to get the photos on there..but it’s Apple.  And this will change over time.)

Even better is the iPad as a photo frame for another person.  With an iPad App from FrameChannel coupled with a customer charging dock and now we’re talking!  FrameChannel is a service I’ve been keeping an eye on for the simple use case of how to share my photos with my parents.  With my parents being in their 80′s and my Dad being the only one who uses their current computer, and just barely, there is no good way to proactively share with them my latest photos.  Let alone family photos from my siblings.  With FrameChannel, I can create a channel for them, link in my RSS photo feed and give my siblings a way to add their own photos to the channel.  Then point supported digital photo frames to this channel on FrameChannel and viola, the automatically get the latest photos from everyone in the family.  Now, let’s take that to the next level with a FrameChannel iPad App: it connects to the channel of your choice and you sit back and watch the slide show or actively browse through the photos.  Add a customized charging dock that triggers a special mode in the FrameChannel iPad App and it turns the iPad into an active photo frame while you’re not using the iPad and it’s charging.  Now this is just active dreaming as this app doesn’t exist…yet?  (anyone out there listening?)

Since the iPhone has the DSLR Camera Remote application already and the iPad will run all the iPhone apps, you’ll be able to use the iPad to remotely control your Canon or Nikon DSLR.  Given that there will be 2 months for onOne software to update their application to fully leverage the iPad.  Image having not only the larger screen for LiveView from the camera, but you could also have the ability to zoom into the LiveView image to fine tune the focus.  When you start to get creative with what the multi-touch surface could do things can get very interesting…image a fully remote controlled camera interfaced with a tilt-pan motorized ball head!  It could be like photographer…the video game!

I also can’t wait to see how some of the photo hosting application get creative with the large screen. Blossom (for SmugMug), Darkslide (for Flickr) and of course Cooliris and Brushes.  We can all expect larger photo viewing and more interesting browsing capabilities, just to start.

Now, the most important part of the iPad for photographers: how will consumers use it?

This is how we should all be thinking about it.  How can we use it to generate more revenue for ourselves?  The most obvious is building more iPad centric applications that use our photos.  I’m thinking of applications that allow your latest and greatest work to be downloaded and used as the iPad’s background.  Or how about a new generation of photo e-books?  Maybe ones that not only include photos but behind the scenes videos ala DVD extras.  Or, how about travel/instructional e-books geared toward photographers or sight seers?  The options here are only limited by your imagination, your time, and of course the iPad SDK.

If you think about how the iPad could influence the future of digital media, then what we should be looking for are true digital photo distribution services.  All this electronic content being viewed on the iPad could have your photos embedded in it by the content providers via a new type of stock licensing model, one geared toward the future of digital media.  This is an area that I have given lots of thoughts to in the past (watch for a future sharing of some of these thoughts…).

So, have you taken a look at the iPad?  What are your thoughts on how you would use it?

I didn’t know what I was doing.  I was in the studio for 12 or 14 hours a day busy working.  I wasn’t paying attention to what others were working on.  I was too busy creating, blindly following my heart.

What struck me about that statement is the sharp contrast that this has to today.  In today’s world of interconnected and real time information flow and social networking it seems like nothing happens in a vacuum.  If you ask anyone they will tell you that you have to be on a social network to gain wider exposure for your art.  But the social network doesn’t work if you are not social.  You have to not only share your work but engage with your network, to connect.  When than happens, it’s inevitable that comparisons and references will be made to others.  Or you will start to network socially with other artists and follow their work.

Doesn’t that whole process kill the potential for you to lock yourself way in the studio for hours on end and follow your heart?

Could all this social networking be killing the original creativity that results from when you follow your heart?

Or is it just making it more difficult to follow your heart?  Now having to make a conscious effort up front to ignore other influences.  And doesn’t that eliminate the ability for you to blindly follow your heart?

Hmm, curious thoughts…time to turn off the internet feeds and work on some photographs.

This is quite a creative use for the viral marketing and customer referrals to inexpensively drive additional revenue to your photography business.

Who are your customers?  Do they interact with other potential customers of yours?  How can you get existing customers to actively refer new customers to you?

A simple idea that has been in wide spread use for years on web services sites and in use for years before that in various businesses.

How could you use this for your business?

So, it’s time for some crowdsourcing feedback.

Which of the following three photos (all from my wine country portfolio) speaks to you most?  Why?

Please leave a comment with your explanation.  I need some feedback in the next couple of days.  Afterwards, I’ll post a comment with which was my favorite and what points that my wife raised that made me second guess it.

This is the view from my studio/digital darkroom. Actually this is mostly my digital dark room as I have another room (with large north facing windows and vaulted ceilings) which doubles as a studio. Nothing creative, nothing stylized, just my workspace and my view. Both change over time.

The trees outside my window will start to bud and grow their leaves in the next few months. This will create the seasonal curtain which closes over my neighbor’s house. Then the leaves will turn yellow as the days grow shorter. Eventually exposing the bare branches when next fall’s rains come again.

The desk that is my workspace will have piles of papers come and go just like the leaves on the trees. Hopefully much faster than the leaves, but often times not. Camera equipment gets left out after a shot; mementos of travel and work get dropped where there is room and shuffled from place to place. Then I get the itch of frustration (or is it just procrastination for some other task?) and do a clean sweep of the desk to start the cycle anew.

When I first came up with the idea for the View from Your Studio blog project, I was going through my end of year contemplations. So I was thinking about photography, my goals, and what enablers or restrictions I had with regarding those goals. I realized that the view from my studio had a large impact on my photographic work.

The studio view pictured above is the same view I have from my home office. The home office which I spend many a day in for my day job. So when the evenings or weekends come, it can be a real struggle to spend more time in the home office to work on processing photos. This has resulted in a lot of photographing just to change my view, but photographs that most don’t see…photographs stuck in my personal picture purgatory.

So, the view from my studio both drives my photography and hinders it at the same time.

(Note: if the photo above has you seeing Red, my apologies. And I mean actual red. The walls of my office should be orange, but I noticed on my new wide color gamut monitor that the walls appear red but not on my laptop screen. If you have a wide color gamut monitor, try viewing this screen on another monitor, it might help get the red out…)

And yet I feel guilty because of the experience.

As I pulled up to the middle school where the event was going on, I saw pallets and pallets of electronic waste. Stacked 5-6 feet high and wrapped with cellophane to hold it all together. A pallet of printers, another of desktop computers, another for stereo equipment. What waste we produce… I only hope that the recycler actually does it responsibly and doesn’t just ship everything to some foreign country.

Have you ever wondered where all this electronic waste goes?  For an eye opening reality, watch the three videos from the previous link…

What made me feel most guilty was that a lot of the waste that I was dropping off, wasn’t really waste.  The 17″ Sony CRT Monitor was actually sitting on my desk, in use, just 3 days ago.  Once my new monitor arrived, I called around asking for places that I could donate the old, still working, one.  No one wanted it.  I had a still working, but low quality, HP printer that I had upgraded last year.  Still working, but of no functional value to anyone.  Same thing for the HP scanner, still in the box with manuals and software (though granted it was over 7 years old).

I actually had a sinking feeling as I watched one of the crew at the recycling event pick up the monitor that has served me well for so many years, drop it down on the stack of other monitors (screen first) and cut the monitor cable off it.  Have I gotten too nostalgic in my aging years?  Or has the current state of the world gotten me to look that much more critically at my choices?

I’m not pushing this stuff around any more which feels like a weight off my shoulders, but replaced with a weight on my heart after my e-cycling experience.

(On a happy note, at least my wife’s old Minolta Maxxum camera was saved.  Thanks to following his recent adventure with film on Twitter, I made a last minute call to Brian Auer of Epic Edits and found a new home for the camera body.  So at least I know that it will live on in the hands of another photographer!)