Is it hard to do photography? 

When I was in college at New England School Of Photography, my history teacher Marty, told us early on; "Once someone hears you're a photographer, they and their friends will be too."  How ture that is. Everyone loves taking pictures or know someone who, "Took this really awesome photo!"

That conversation always turn to the question, "Is it hard to do photography?"

Thats a bit of a trick question. Depending on my mood I want to answer both, yes and no. The business is hard, for sure, as is trying to be any type of artist, exspically an indentant artist in the world of Corprate America. Though thats another rant altogether.

 I'm so used to hearing this so often I answer, "No." right away. The follow question is most always, "What do they teach you in photography school?" This is the question I like to answer.

 I go on to say:

Its not hard being a photographer because everyone has some sort of artistic vision that would appeal to someone else. They don't teach you how to see in art school. Composition classes are usually exercises to get you to explore other areas you might not notice. The important thing a good photography school teaches you is: how to use your equipment and tools to capture the world as you see it.  Learning to use your tools and knowing what they are capable of is fundamental in photography. A photojournalist my see a great interaction between war protesters on the streets of Washington, but, if he doesn't know how to mix flash with fading ambainte light, and know how to control the flash to camera interaction in a quick fashion, he'll loose the opportunity to take that front page, award winning portfolio photograph.

As simple as that. I then like to go on to tell whom I chatting with how, on the second day of going to school, our teacher took away our familiar 35mm cameras and gave us "old fashion" 4X5 view camera and told us to go outside and start using them. That process was so important because with a view camera we started learning about our tools in the simplest and oldest form, where the building block of what we know as photography, started. 

No card for my Beautiful Mother. Instead I made her this… this photo-montage is of her and my niece. I want to show this off. And at the same time I don't want to cause I don't like photographing kids. I don't people to know I can do it cause then they'll ask me to. I'll have to tell them no.

this is my first post on this new platform. i was on www.xavierarmand.blogspot.com but decided to change because google does not use enough features that i need in order to get this blog off the ground. as my bio line reads: im a photographer and am starting this blog as a up the minute news station from my projects, clients, explorations, reviews, previews, etc etc etc, this is going to be my new homepage (as well as hopefully yours) and will soon be an extension of my website. (once i get far in development). my website needs updateing as well, but nonetheless, give that a look as well: www.xavierarmand.com to learn about the new platform im using here at wordpress ill be moving past blog post from other places to here. so keep checking back!! as always, on any website/project im working on, comments and very welcome and appreciated.  thanks and look forward to all the possibilities  -xavier

New 5D to eclipse competition?

Canon has just added a mysterious teaser to its US website. The page shows a silhouette of a camera with the words 'Destined Evolution.' Maybe it will be updated to include more detail in the future, we don't know. It's almost as if the company is building up to the launch of a camera to replace one of its older models. We have no specific information but it doesn't require any profound market insight to predict an EOS 5D replacement is coming. (09:35 GMT)