My new 4- week and 8-week on-Line courses began two days ago. It's still not too late to sign up.
For example, want to make money in photography? Learn how to market photos like the puppy below. Want to feel more confident in exposure? Learn how to expose white subjects like the puppy. Interested in learning more about Photoshop. Learn how to incorporate pictures like the puppy into another image.
I teach several 8-week and 4-week courses on-line for Betterphoto.com
The way the courses work is this. Every Wednesday, you receive a lesson that consists of text and photos, explaining various principles in either photography or digitral manipulation. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment, and you have plenty of time to take pictures and upload them for my critique. You can use photos you did specifically for the assignment or images that you have taken previously.
On-line photo courses are like virtual classrooms but not in real time. Other students can see your pictures, read my critiques, and comment on your work. Similarly, you can comment on the pictures of other students.
One of the wonderful things about these on-line courses is that students participate from all over the world. In a single lesson's uploads, you may see pictures from Bryce Canyon or Brazil, or from Singapore or South Carolina. It's a very simulating environment as well as a learning experience, and it will help you become the photographer or digital artist that you want to be.
On the Betterphoto.com website, you can read the lesson outline of each course and see sample photos. In addition to going to Betterphoto.com, you can also access the courses I teach drectly by going to my website, jimzuckerman.com, and clicking on the link 'Courses'. at the top of the home page.
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Message
The company that made one of the best Photoshop plug-ins, Buzz,
has gone out of business. Instead of selling the technology, they have just disappeared. If you want to get this plug-in now, you have to know someone who has it. If you don't already know about this filter, on my website (jimzuckerman.com) all the images in the 'Fine Art Color' category were done with Buzz.
If you don't know anyone who has Buzz and you want it, drop me a note and let me know if you have a PC or a Macintosh computer and I'll email it to you along with the password.
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Working with Foreign Models:
Guaranteeing great images
The best way you can produce fantastic pictures of people when you travel is to hire, or otherwise arrange, models. In this way you chose the circumstances of the photo shoot: the lighting, the pose, the clothing, and the environment. In other countries, the amount of money you pay is usually small but the images will be priceless. I learned a long time ago that relying on serendipitous moments to get good pictures is not a good idea. I prefer to make the images happen. Sometimes I take posed pictures and sometimes I make the images look like I was lucky to get them -- but in reality they were staged. 
Your two best sources for models in any country in the world are taxi drivers and the concierge in any decent hotel. They will know how to get pretty much anything you want.
Sometimes I will arrange a shot on the spot. For example, the photo on the left was taken a couple of weeks ago at a festival in the state of Punjab in India. I simply asked the Sikh horseman to rear and he was nice enough to accommodate me. The people at this particular festival were extraordinarily nice and happy to be photographed -- and no one asked for money. With the horseman, I asked him to move to a location that I liked and he did it. You never know what you'll get if you don't ask.
When I photographed the two village girls below, I paid about $2 for them to sit in front of their geometrically painted home and talk to each other.
I asked them through my
interpreter not to look
at the camera, and to
converse as if I wasn't
there. In this way I could
capture a natural looking
shot that looks like I was
lucky to get it. Of course, no luck was involved at all. I preconceived the image and set it up.
The photo of the young
woman below walking up steps in another village was done in a similar way. I asked the model to walk up and down the steps without paying attention to me. I'm sure she does this by herself when I'm not there, but when I was in the village she was just watching me photograph the children. I saw her beautiful sari and knew that she would make an incredible photo against the blue sky. This picture cost $1 -- a nice tip for her but a sum of money that is inconsequential to me.  When I traveled to the desert area of Rajasthan, Jaiselmer, I wanted to get a classic shot of a camel train on the crest of a dune. This type of situation happens all the time, but the chances of it happening when and where I wanted while I was traveling in India were slim to none. Therefore, I set it up. I paid about $40 for several young men and five camels to walk back and forth across the dune of my choice when the lighting was the most beautiful. 
By setting up model shoots, whether they be people, camels, horses, or whatever, you can control the situation and get ideal pictures. All you need is a good background and a photogenic and willing subject. I've done this all over the world, and this is how I get some of my best and most salable pictures. In the camel train photo above, I didn't have an awesome sky -- it was good but not awesome -- so I used Photoshop to embellish this to make it as powerful as possible. I love maxim drama in my work, and photo buyers like it, too.
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Self Critique
I love this picture. The cocker spaniel puppy is adorable, and I like the lighting I used very much. The light is a single studio strobe with one white umbrella placed behind me and to my left about two feet. The owner of the puppy was seated in the background and she was holding him, so I used the burn tool in Photoshop to darken her navy blue sweatshirt so it disappeared.
When I photograph pets, I like to shoot from eye level. I find this creates a more intimate portrait. Instead of seeming like an observer and shooting downward on the subject, the eye-to-eye view point seems to suggest a close communication as if I am in their world as opposed to being outside of it. I used a small lens aperture (f/22) for maximum depth of field because I wanted every bit of detail to be rendered sharp. I used the shocking colors of the scarf and the Mexican blanket for pizazz and to make this image more salable. One of the things that I discuss in my on-line course 'Making money in photography' (http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=108) is that color sells because it attracts the eye like nothing else except movement.
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Compositing for Drama
How many times have you visited a place and the lighting wasn't right? If the sun rose or set in a better position, you could have taken a classic shot. When you were there, however, the month was wrong and the sun was not behind the subject like you saw in the post card or the travel brochure.
The solution is to composite two pictures together. That's what I did with the Taj Mahal photos you see below. I had previously been to the Taj when the sun rose in a better position (November), but on this last trip a couple of weeks ago the sun wasn't far enough south in the sky. It was
disappointing to say the least.
 To remedy the situation, I used a long telephoto to shoot the sun (thus making it large in the frame), and then I combined it with a semi-silhouette of the world famous tomb using Photoshop. I used one of the blend modes in the Layers palette to combine the two pictures perfectly (I used 'lighten'). You can access the blend tools by pulling down the submenu in the Layers palette that has the word 'normal' on the tab. With the move tool selected, I could position the sun anywhere in the frame I wanted.
Another variation is the image you see at right. The sun for both photos was taken with a 500mm lens.  It is unnaturally large but it makes a very dynamic picture. In this way, I turned a situation that was photographically disappointing to one that is exciting and worthy of
such a beautiful place.
One more variation I want
to show you is the Taj
seen through an arch. This arch was photographed on the grounds of the famous structure, but when standing behind the arch you don't see this view.
 Instead, you see the classic entrance of the tomb. The arch itself isn't aligned perfectly with the Taj but instead it's off-center, so this photograph is impossible to take. In other words, the picture you see here doesn't exist. I love the image, but no one can take this because from this angle (which is from across the river) there are no arches. Since my work is used in advertising a lot, and because advertisers usually don't care about reality -- they just want visual impact -- I felt that this image may sell sometime down the road.
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 AMPHIBIAN AND REPTILE SEMINAR
I am happy to announce a new seminar. A couple of months ago, I had such a great time and took so many amazing pictures photographing frogs that I've arranged to offer you the same experience. It will be a 2-day seminar in St.Louis, Missouri on August 23, 24. I will set up natural looking environments and you will be able to take some of the best macro shots of your life. The subjects will include many species of poison dart frogs, geckos, chameleons, and other intriguing creatures. The seminar is limited to 8 people, and lighting will be provided (although you are welcome to bring your own flash equipment). You can read more about this by clicking this link:
http://www.jimzuckermanworkshops.com/
 
These are the types of images you can expect to take during the seminar. Regarding the natural environment in the chameleon photo above (this was photographed indoors), I will show you how to do this during the seminar and you'll be amazed at how easy it is.
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