After much deliberation and several rounds of voting, the members of the Fine Art Photoblog are please to announce the addition of three new photographers to the group.

Mathias Pastwa

With a flair for the industrial and an obvious technical command of the medium, Mathias brings a refined yet gritty edge to the group, with clean compositions and saturation of color giving his work a modern but nonetheless unique style.

View Mathias Pastwa’s Portfolio »

Dawn LeBlanc

A simple balance of light and shadow, coupled with her eye for crisp lines, Dawn brings her observations of smaller worlds into our group, a welcome addition to a circle of predominately outdoor shooters.

View Dawn LeBlanc’s Portfolio »

William Fawcett

Exhibiting both urban and natural landscape panoramas of an epic quality, William has strengthened our existing range of landscape photography. He shows a personal touch to wide format compositions that is all too rare in this medium.

View William Fawcett’s Portfolio »

Thank you once again to everyone who submitted work. The decision process was not easy, 44 submissions were made, the vast majority of which were outstanding. However in the end, we could only pick three.

I’d also like to thank Elizabeth Cecil, a fellow photographer, for helping us with the selection process.

Don’t forget to watch for posts from our newest members on fineartphotoblog.com in the very near future.

I came across this secret on the Post Secret site the other day. I’m not sure what is more disturbing, the fact that a professional photographer doesn’t know what ISO and f-stops are, or the fact that you can actually work as a photographer without this knowledge.

Five things to always keep in mind as a photographer.

Always Carry a Camera Absolutely always carry a camera, to the store, to work, to dinner, to family functions, everywhere. You just never know, and there is nothing worse than hearing the words “where’s my my camera when I need it?” come out of your own mouth.

Stop To Make The Picture Never hesitate to stop and make a photograph when the opportunity presents itself. Great photographs and instantaneous and fleeting in nature, chances are you’ll never see it again. So do yourself a favor and stop.

Ignorance Is Bliss So stop looking at that little screen on the back of your camera. It serves absolutely no purpose accept to break your rhythm of shooting. Just keep in mind that while your checking out that little screen, that gives you no accurate indication of exposure or sharpness or depth of field, 10 pictures just blew right past you.

Shoot For Yourself Constructive criticism can only help to improve your photographs. However, when all is said and done, you are the one who has to live with your work. Shoot for yourself, and nobody else.

Strive To Improve Never stop learning. Never stop looking at good work. Never stop improving. Perhaps the most amazing thing about photographing the world around us is that we always go to bed smarter than when we woke up. Never assume that there is nothing left to learn.

Top Five Marketing Tools For Photographers

The Blog: Blogs are everywhere, they take all of ten minutes to set up, free of charge, and your work is instantaneously exposed to millions of people around the world. A website is just a portfolio, a blog can serve as a journal of your work. Post photographs, thoughts, news on what your shooting, what you’re working on, where you’re going. The personal nature of a blog can build a following that wasn’t possible just a few years ago.

The Book: Publishing on demand is a photographers dream. Sites such as blurb.com offer very reasonable rates and no minimum purchase. Blurb also offers a storefront to sell your book. You set the price, their commission is minimal. While selling books is a great idea, margins are thin, and revenues depend on volume. However, handing a potential client a professionally bound 40 page book, chances are your going to look pretty good.

The Exhibition: Photographers often think that their exhibition will generate income, that touring a show is a way to make money. This could not be farther from the truth. An exhibition is two things, a time suck, and an ego stroke, neither of which are money makers. That said, an exhibition can be an amazing promotional tool, and does have the potential to generate income if the infrastructure is in place. Selling books, catalogs, prints, and posters at the exhibition and through your website can produce a steady cash flow. An exhibition is really just a big PR campaign, use it.

The Card: May sound old school, but it still works. Hand them out like candy. Make them cool. Check out Creative Bits for ideas. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

The Street: You meet some interesting people when you’re on the street making pictures. Carry business cards, a couple 4×6’s, postcards, a small catalog, anything that you can put in someone’s hands. You never know who you’ll meet.

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.

-Dorothea Lange

If it’s a likeness, alone, it’s not a success. If, through my portraits, you can come to know the subjects more meaningfully, if it synthesizes your feelings toward someone whose work has imprinted itself on your mind–if you see a photograph and say, ‘Yes, this is the person,’ with a little new insight–that is a beautiful experience.-Yousuf Karsh

It fascinates me that there is a variety of feeling about what I do. I’m not a premeditative photographer. I see a picture and I make it. If I had a chance, I’d be out shooting all the time. You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you.

-Lee Friedlander, “Documentary Photography – LIFE Library of Photography”

Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography…schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you’ve learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting…it doesn’t matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen.

-Elliott Erwitt

To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

-Henri Cartier-Bresson

I’m not a collector at heart. I’m never tormented by the longing to possess things. I’m quite happy with my pictures. I’ve been cohabiting with them for years now and we know each other inside out, so I feel I’m entitled to say that pictures have a life and a character of their own. Maybe they’re like plants they won’t really flourish unless you talk to them. I haven’t gone that far – not yet anyway. Lots of them behave like good little girls and give me a nice smile whenever I walk past, but others are real bitches and never miss any opportunity to ruin my life. I handle them with kid gloves.

-Robert Doisneau, “Three Seconds of Eternity” by Robert Doisneau