This can be a touchy subject.  I am extremely grateful for everything our police officers and all first responders do for our community.  Ever since 9/11 police have been quicker to stop photographers who are taking photos of public buildings and architecture.  I have been stopped on numerous occasions.  All the officers that have approached me have been extremely polite and nice.  We actually end up talking about photography for about 10 minutes.  I show them a few photos I have snapping and they are pleased.  The next time you are on vacation (especially in a big city) be aware that if you like to take pictures of important buildings or public spaces you may be approached by a police officer.  Be sure you know your rights to photograph in public spaces:

When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.

Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant. If you are arrested, the contents of your phone may be scrutinized by the police, although their constitutional power to do so remains unsettled. In addition, it is possible that courts may approve the seizure of a camera in some circumstances if police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that it contains evidence of a crime by someone other than the police themselves (it is unsettled whether they still need a warrant to view them). (citing: http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers)

Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.

Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations.  Be smart and don’t get in their way when they are trying to do their job.

When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. – So you better behave yourself and ask for permission if you are on private property.  Otherwise you could end up in big trouble.  Especially if the owner of the property isn’t such a nice guy/girl.

If you are stopped by a police officer.  Be polite and courteous.  The correct question to ask the officer is, “Am I free to go?”  If the answer is “No.”  then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal.  If you are detained, politely ask what crime you are suspected of committing, and remind the officer that taking photographs is your right under the First Amendment and does not constitute reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. (citing: http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers)

Now with all this said, it is kind of nice to know that the police care enough about our cities to come up and ask why you are photographing a building or public space.  I think as long as you are polite with them they will be with you…fingers crossed.

Apparently this got so bad in the UK that a company decided to print out photographer’s rights on a lens cleaning cloth…now that is pretty clever.  It probably is a good idea to make a copy of your rights and keep them in your camera bag just in case.  Best of luck the next time you are out and about taking some beautiful architecture photos!

Here is a shot of that lens cloth.

First of all, Happy New Year to you all.  We hope 2012 is a blessed year for you all.  To start the year off we wanted to share with you some home decorating resources that we regularly check out for inspiration and ideas.  Hopefully we cover the gamut of everyone’s taste for decorating.  Traditional, contemporary, modern, and maybe a even a little country thrown in there too.  Feel free to peruse.

Real Simple – Tips for home decorating.  Tends to run a little on the contemporary and modern side but some great ideas on there.

Better Homes and Gardens (BHG.com) – Leans toward the traditional with a twist.  I would recommend signing up for their weekly newsletters.  They always have some great photos to get some ideas from.

Pinterest – No, I’m not obsessed with pinterest.  It is perfect for looking at decorating ideas because so many people pin different ideas from a variety of different websites.

Remodelista – Pretty cool little blog to check out.  Runs the gamut from remodeling a home to interior design.

Here are a few others we found that are pretty cool to check out on occasion.

Elle Decor

Martha Stewart – Decorating by room – (had to throw Martha in there)

Casa Sugar

As we are getting closer to Christmas we, at Canvas Press, wanted to take a little time out and give a huge thank you to all of our amazing customers out there who have ordered a photo canvas or even multiple photos on canvas.  We know there are several choices out there and even if you do choose one of them some other time we hope that you will see that the quality of our product and craftsmanship really shines through.

I don’t want to get all mushy on you all, but we strive to give you all the best of ourselves and the best materials out there because…well…frankly, you deserve it.  We would gladly put our canvas prints side by side with any of our competitors out there and we know that ours will shine through because the quality of our canvas and craftsmanship is something we dedicate every single day to perfect.  We totally get that we aren’t the cheapest option out there, and we probably aren’t the most expensive either but where we shine above the rest is our continuing focus is to deliver to you…quality.  Quality canvas that you can pass on to the next generation and quality (if not fanatical) customer service that goes the extra mile for each of you.

So, again, THANK YOU everyone who has made this year and this holiday season so great…that’s you by the way.  Oh, and this isn’t the last of the Christmas sentiments.  You can totally expect more of this coming your way as we count down til the 25th.  We can’t help it…we LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Here we are in the Canvas Press workshop hard at work (not to be confused with Santa’s workshop…although there are some similarities).

canvases stretched and ready to be shipped

coming hot off the printer.

John is making those corners supa-tight.

Jen is making sure the canvas is protected during shipping.

The man with the hat, Cody hard at work hand stretching your canvases.

Canvas waiting to get stretched.

...and the frames waiting for the canvas...it's like a love story.

You know the one nice thing about back in the day when all you could take photos with was film…you actually got photos out of the deal.  Real, touchable, feel-able photos in your hands to look at.  In the digital age it is so easy to get in the habit of just leaving your photos on your camera or phone.  And so what ends up happening is that you take photos until your camera’s card is full…which inevitably ends up happening when you are out and about and want to take a bunch of photos.  But you can’t cuz your card is FULL.  Even your smartphone’s camera roll can get bogged down with waaaay too many photos.  Here is a fairly easy Workflow for getting the photos off your camera and phone and organized in a way that is easily accessible and viewable.  It also makes it easy if you do want to make prints from your photos or start a photo project (maybe a family album, photo enlargement, or canvas print).

This How To is probably an Intermediate to Advanced level.

What you will need for your photo workflow (and this is optional):

• An external / portable hard drive – You can pick one of these up for around $100 and they are a fantastic idea to create a backup of all your images and important computer documents in case something happens to your computer.
• Software to rename your photos with 4 digits. (Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, & for you Mac users…Automator are all good programs to use to rename your photos).  Again, this is completely optional.

Here are the steps to creating your workflow:

1. Create a KEEP folder on your desktop – This is a Main folder that you will initially house subfolders that you will dump your images into.
2. Under KEEP folder create a NEW FOLDER that is named in this format: year-month-day description (YY-MM-DD Description).  For example the folder I put all the images in from Christmas day would be named: 11-12-25 Christmas.  Putting the year first ensures your folders will stay in order.  For each month and day be sure to use a 2 digit place holder.  So January 1st, 2012 would look like: 12-01-01
3. In each NEW FOLDER you set up is where you can dump the appropriate photos for that particular date.  If you have a ton of photos from several different days you can download them all to the KEEP folder first then separate them into their subfolders as needed.
4. This part is completely optional and is a little more advanced.  Renaming your images.  Renaming images ensures that no images get lost…so if for some reason a photo got moved out of it’s folder you would know exactly where it goes based on the name.  So what should we name these suckers?  Name them the same as the folder they are in (without the dashes).  So it will be – YYMMDD Description – then your computer will auto name them.  So those Christmas photos I will be taking will be named:  111225 Christmas 0001.jpg.  The only thing that will change in this name will the the 4 digit number (0001, 0002, 0003, etc)…and my computer will take care of that part for me.  If you don’t know how to rename your photos no worries.  At least you have them in a folder with the a name that will keep you more organized.
5. At this point I will copy the entire main folder (11-12-25 Christmas) to my back-up portable hard drive for safe keeping.
6. Subfolders – If you like to play around with Photoshop or other photo editing software then you may want to make a few subfolders within named event folder.  I like to make 2 subfolders to help me further organize my images.  I name them: 01EDITS, & 02DISCARD.  I put the 01 and 02 in front of them to ensure that they will stay at the top of the other image files in the folder.  Now I can go through and throw out any images I don’t like, and if I play with a photo in Photoshop I can save it into my 01EDITS folder so I am not saving over the original.  ALWAYS KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS UNTOUCHED.

There you go, in 6 steps(or 5 if you don’t want to rename your photos…fine, you won’t hurt my feelings) you will have a super organized and easy to look at photo folders.  Now you can find exactly what you are looking for the next time you want to order a canvas print or make a photo collage or just reminisce about your summer vacation.

Here is an example of what the general organization order is:

-KEEP (Main Folder)

-11-12-25 Christmas (Event Folder)

-01EDITS

-02DISCARD

-11-12-31 New Years

-12-01-16 Mom’s Birthday

And Here is a screen shot of what my Keep folder looks like on my Desktop here at work.

For this blog post our very own Caroline Cohoon will take the reigns.  Caroline is not only our amazing Director of Customer Service but she is also an accomplished photographer and world traveler.  Take it away Caroline.

Thanks Eric!  You know, selling original paintings is a wonderful thing but it comes with a price. Not only meaning it comes with a large price tag, but also the fact that you no longer have the painting around. Making gicleé canvas prints is a great way to get even more out of your art.

The art market often takes a big hit when the economy takes a down turn, and be able to offer more affordable options for you art through gicleés you can help keep business thriving. Offering gicleés in no way diminishes the value or desirability of your original painting. Originals are truly one of a kind and show a depth and texture that won’t always be identical in the gicleé copy. You can also embellish each gicleé after printing so that each one becomes a new and unique piece with even more value.

Some places offer scanning services but unless you are in a big city you may not be able to find somewhere capable of scanning large paintings. You can also hire a photographer to take digital photos of your art in a studio but both these options may add a lot of expense to your reproduction budget. Here are a few tips to getting a good digital photo of your art that will make for good quality gicleé reproductions.

Make sure your camera settings are correct. You want the highest resolution available. While cameras today are often 10+ MP you can set them to a lower setting to get more photos on a memory card. For your reproductions, always make sure it is on the maximum setting. Check the compression level as well; you want a large JPG file that won’t compress the photos causing pixelation. This usually looks like stair steps or a pie piece, but it may also be described as “standard, fine or superfine.” You want “superfine” or the pie piece. If you don’t have a good quality camera you might consider renting one for a day from a local camera shop. Tell them your plans and see what equipment they recommend.

Lighting is key. You want the most even light possible. If you like to varnish your paintings to make them glossy it is best to photograph them before adding that varnish to reduce any glare. Make sure all the lighting is the same. If you have daylight from windows in the scene as well as indoor lights the colors will not reproduce correctly. You could shoot outside in shade for even light, or indoors with only one light source but try to make sure there are no shadows. Turn the flash off. It will only create shadows and glare.

Put the camera on a tripod to make sure it gets a sharp picture. Set it to be straight on the art and as close as possible. You want to fill the image as much as you can with the art to maximize resolution. Try to get the painting as level as possible. If there is a slight angle then the painting will not appear square in the finished digital file.

Take extra shots. Don’t take just one, take a few to make sure. You may also experiment shots in different lighting to make sure you like the end result.

The digital picture will likely need some touchups to make sure it is the best possible copy of your painting. Color and contrast adjustment, as well as touching up any glare spots or leveling the edges to make sure it is square. If you have some knowledge of Photoshop you can try these adjustments yourself. Never save over your original, give the edited version a new name and save it as a copy just in case you need to go back to the original. To maintain quality, if you crop the photo make sure you don’t change the resolution and make it smaller. When adjusting the image size always make sure that “resample image” is unchecked. Also save as a JPG at the maximum quality level which in Photoshop is number 12. This is the same setting as the compression level we discussed setting for the camera. You can also have Canvas Press do these tweaks and cropping for you with our basic retouching option that only costs $15.

If you aren’t satisfied with your results then you may want to choose to have it professionally done. Get in touch with some local artist groups and see if they have recommendations or perhaps have a discount setup with someone who can make digital copies for you.

Making gicleé prints on canvas helps bring your paintings alive. Since the texture matches that of an original painting on canvas it adds realism and makes an incredible copy. Again, it won’t be the same as your original but it will make a beautiful piece of art with excellent value.

Andreas Gurskey recently made big news in the fine art photography world for selling a photo for 4.3 million dollars.  Pretty insane right.  Well the photo has been object of a lot of criticism and acclaim over the last few weeks, but the one thing you can not take away from Andreas Gurskey’s work is his ability to see the whole picture.  Gurskey has a knack for seeing patterns in the environment, in crowds, and in places you wouldn’t expect (like the 99 cent store).  His work proves that you and should inspire you to look for art EVERYWHERE.  Sometimes you just to take a step back…maybe even way back to get a different perspective at what you are looking at.  Always ask yourself, “I wonder what this photo would look like if I took it from over there?” or at this angle.  The other thing Gurskey is known for is that when he displays a photo, he doesn’t hold back.  He normally prints his work to ginormous sizes.  The print that sold for 4.3 million was around 12′ wide by 7′ high and had impeccable detail and texture.  All of his work does.  Here is a look at some of his work.

The 99 cent store

Kuwait Stock Exchange II

And here is the photo that sold for 4.3 million dollars to a private collector.  Let us know what you think about that.

I have to give a big thank you to my sister Jen for coming up with this topic.  What the heck do all these things mean on my camera dial?  They could also be somewhere on your point and shoot…Let me give you an idea of what I am talking about.  If you have a DSLR…or something that looks like this

Then you may have a dial on top of the camera that looks like either of these.  The top one is a Nikon dial and the bottom one is a Canon dial.

Even if you have a point and shoot my bet is that some of these same figures and letters are somewhere on your camera.  Now the trick is figuring out what they mean and how to use them…or should I use them.  The goal here is taking better pictures of your kids…right.  And a big part of that is understanding your camera and how it works and what it’s limitations are.  Just like GI Joe always said “Knowing is half the battle”…important words to live by.  Ok, I may be overstating, but it is kind of true.

All right, let’s get down to it.  What exactly do those thingies on your dial mean, what do they do, and should I use them or not.  First off let’s figure out what they mean.  Here is a quick guide to let you know at least what the buttons stand for.

The first thing I want you to do is ignore and don’t use any of the little picture icon settings like: portrait, landscape, close-up/macro, sport…etc.  Those aren’t magical settings that are going to make that particular photo look fantastic and brilliant.  They are presets that the camera companies have pre-programmed to try to help you out in those situations.  In my opinion you don’t need them, and they can often mess you up more than they help you out.

Onto the letters and a little more about their meaning.  I will go in order of importance (in my opinion)

• M – Manual Mode – That means that the shutter speed and the aperture are completely in your control.  The upside: You have the most creative control in manual.  The downside: Probably the hardest to master.  *Note: I would say the majority of professional photographers learn and shoot in Manual Mode.
• A or Av – Aperture Priority Mode – In aperture priority mode you select which aperture you want to shoot at and your camera auto selects the best shutter speed for a “correct” exposure.  This mode can be very helpful if you are in a situation where your light is constantly changing.  In manual mode your fingers would be busy changing settings, in aperture priority mode, you set the aperture and the camera does the shutter speed.  Did you notice the ” ” around the word, correct?  Without getting into too much technical stuff, just know that you may still need to do some tweaking to the image to get an exposure to your liking.  Overall this is a good setting to use in a pinch.
• S or Tv – Shutter Priority Mode – You guessed it…you select which shutter speed you want to shoot at and the camera will select the aperture for a balanced exposure.  You know what…honestly…I wouldn’t worry about using Shutter Priority.  Aperture Priority is much better to master (in my opinion).  So for right now, don’t use it.  Oh, and why Canon decided on Tv for Shutter priority?  It stands for “Time Value”.  They are trying to keep it Old School.
• P – Program Mode – This is a little bit better than fully auto.  The camera is still picking your shutter and aperture for you, but you can still adjust a few things you couldn’t in Auto mode.  You can control the flash, the ISO (film speed) and white balance of the camera.  The upside: Your flash won’t automatically pop up for almost every single photo.  You are in control of when the flash fires or not and a few other things that control the quality of the photo.  The downside: You are losing a lot of creative control with the camera choosing your shutter speed and aperture.
• Auto or green rectangle – Auto Mode – the camera is in complete control of…well…pretty much everything.  You are just pointing and shooting (probably not why you bought a DSLR).  It is controlling your shutter speed, your aperture, when the flash goes off, the white balance of the photo, and the ISO the photo is taken at.  The upside: This is a good way to learn if you are just starting.  Begin to notice how shutter speeds and aperture work together.  The downside: Zero creative control.  Your DSLR is a effectively a large, expensive point and shoot (which is totally ok when you are starting out.)

My challenge to you would be to learn how to use your camera in the M for Manual mode.  But we can take baby steps.  At least now you know exactly what those buttons are.  You can start to explore by using them…skipping over a bunch of them and take note of what does what on your camera.

Once you start to master these different modes you will notice how much more control you have over your photos and how good they will start to look…of course you know Canvas Press is here to make any of those amazing photos you take into canvas prints for you ;-D…Just in case you forgot.

We are really enjoying our Canvas Press photos on canvas in our new dental office.  Everyone comments on them and we have referred many to your website.  Here are a few photos to show how beautiful the canvases look. 

- Rosemary & Terry