Photographer of the Week: Randy Brogen

Nice work, Randy; the OOB Minuteman cover is very nice.

"Eyes of Hope": It's hard to take a bad shot of a beautiful woman.

Thanks for the kind words Chris. I like trying a variety of techniques and this shot definitely lent itself to the OOBing process.

Foul! I thought this was a column featuring 'amateur' photographers? Mr. Brogen's work, while very nice, seems to fall way outside this definition, especially when his website touts his various professional associations and photographic 'services'.

While I'm sure there are many pros who would love the free advertising, please keep this series 'focused' on its original intent!

Hi, John ... Randy is an amateur. He's a serious hobbyist who is trying to build a professional business, but he's still an amateur. His full-time job is as a CTO for a real estate company. As for the professional organizations he has listed on his site, anyone can join them if you are willing to pay the hefty monthly fees. For Randy, the cost is worth it because of the resources and the networking he can take advantage of as he tries to build his photo business.

Look, there is a wide range of amateurs out there, from people who take snapshots of family and friends to folks like Randy and others who try to sell their work. Heck, I've sold my share of photos at art shows on the Cape. I once had a photo show on the Cape, somebody liked my pictures, and commissioned me to shoot black-and-white photos of Old Ironsides to hang in the lobby of his office building in Charlestown. That hardly makes me a professional -- it makes me lucky!

I understand that the line between professional and very advanced amateur can be blurry. You can have a full-time job Monday through Friday, but also have a thriving wedding photo business on weekends that provides you with a nice income on the side. I have to trust that the people who contribute to RAW understand that we are trying to cater to amateurs, and if they reach the point where they are making a significant income from their photo business, and have advanced their skills to the point where they wouldn't really be considered an amateur anymore, they will step aside.

Randy has shot some events on an unpaid basis to gain experience, and has done some weddings for family and friends (I've been asked to shoot weddings but always declined out of sheer terror). He's starting to get into paid studio portraits. Good for him. Let's applaud his success and congratulate him on the progress he's made in such a short time.

Bravo Teresa! Well said ... and Bravo to Randy for having the guts to try ....

Eyes of Hope is so photoshopped that the girl looks fake - notably her skin and eyes. Hardly an impromptu shot. There's nothing wrong with photoshop when done well, but this is not good, and I don't think it's fair to call it an impromptu shot.

Very well put Teresa - I am in full agreement being a "very advanced amateur" myself. :) I, too, have been making supplemental income as a freelance photographer as a "side project" to my 9 to 5er.

I really appreciate the RAW section on Boston.com for all its diversity and the projects are fascinating and I love to check in and see what others do!

Randy - the samples here are amazing! I look forward to checking out your website when I have a bit more time.

those eyes look overdone and don't look natural at all.

Could you guys be more upfront about retouching in photos? Perhaps I am an old dog but the shot of the to woman at top is so lacking in skin detail (and her scary blue eyes) that its obvious to me that its retouched - even at a tiny thumbnail size on the boston.com homepage. I am not saying its cheating - because retouching is all part of the game now, but I think calling something simply "an impromptu shot..." is misleading when the shot may have been taking without much thought or planning, but that was only half the story. There was certainly lots of careful manipulating of pixels to get that photo to look the way it does.

I'm with John... great pics, but Randy is no amateur.

No matter how useful or inane the information, I have never been motivated to respond to a comment on this blog until now. The person who said "it's hard to take a bad shot of a beautiful woman" clearly has no idea of photography and is doing a dis-service to Mr. Brogen. Capturing the detail of this woman's face and eyes is not just luck. Keep up the excellent work.

Hello Everyone,

First let me say thank you to Boston.com for hosting this venue and for providing me with the privilege to participate. To clarify, I guess I'm considered an advanced amateur. I do hope to carry the tag of "Professional Photographer" at some point. I am very fortunate that I have over 24 years in technology which I can leverage in my photography. I have spent countless days/weeks immersing myself in this art I love because I do enjoy it very much (and I have an absolutely wonderful, understanding, supportive wife) that enables me to spend that much time on it. This passion, combined with my technical skills, has allowed me to get to a fairly advanced level more quickly than some others who do not have similar backgrounds.

Secondly, let me say thank you to all who have posted, both positive and disapproving responses.

Steven/rh: I do retouch all of my photos because I shoot only in RAW mode and by its very nature requires some retouching (e.g. sharpening). One of the big pitfalls with sharing photos over the Internet like this is that an image can look vastly different from monitor to monitor (for a variety of reasons like video hardware, drivers and monitor quality and calibration) to name but a few. All of my monitors are calibrated using a Huey calibration system which constantly monitors room lighting conditions and changes my monitor calibration accordingly so that I can get consistent results. The picture to which you are referring has had very little done to it in reality. The reason I said it was an impromptu shot was that the young lady was not even part of the shooting that I was doing but was a bystander friend to one of the people who were getting their picture taken. Her skin had practically no flaws and her eyes were so piercing that it caught my attention from across the front lawn and which is why I asked her if it was okay if I took her picture. I can assure both of you if you were to view this on a calibrated monitor you would see every pore of skin detail and even the tiniest of hairs above her eyebrows.

John/RR Fields: I appreciate the compliments on my work and respect your opinions. I will accept your comments on my amateur status as a positive reflection on my hard work. As I mentioned before, I do hope to carry the title "Professional Photographer" at some point, but will look at is as a title and continue to strive and challenge myself to always improve my art.

I like some of the photographs, particularly the jellyfish, but initialing all of your images is distracting. I don't mean to sound rude and it's just my opinion, but I think your work would be taken more seriously if you removed the initials.

Who cares about Randy, I wanna know more about the chick with the amazing blue eyes!

Eyes of hope is strikingly beautiful. She stopped me in my tracks. I wonder what she is thinking there. She looks slightly sad so I wish she had smiled. You do nice work Randy.

Perhaps she is thinking about nothing. Ever thought that what people think has nothing to do with the way they look?

Wouldn't 'amateur' be defined as NOT making any money with your work, and professional AS making money... kinda like the real world? I am not sure why one would call themselves an amateur if they have been paid for their work.. just my thoughts.

Thanks! I'm going to pick up a Scott Kelby book during my lunch break now.

Come on guys! This isn't a contest. Surely the issue is whether the POTW has something to say that is of interest to an amateur audience, not whether he makes any money from his pictures or not.

Justmythoughts: You'd be surprised at the number of amateurs who sell photos at shows and fairs or via a website. Selling a $25 matted print or a $100 framed 8x10 hardly makes you a professional.

This isn't like sports; pros in sports don't get paid a few dollars a few times a year while they're also working another non-sports full-time job; when you turn pro, you work full-time at that athletic endeavor and get paid a full-time salary.

You're not a pro in photography until you either pursue the craft full-time, or you have a nice business on the side, like wedding or studio photography, that gives you a significant portion of your overall income.

If we banned everybody who ever sold a photo, we'd lose a good portion of our regulars!

Julie Q et al: Below is a list of reference materials that have helped me so II thought I would share them with you. I do not get any kickback for any referrals. This is just a list of some of my reference materials that I have found to be useful.

Author: Scott Kelby
Digital Photography Volume 1, 2 & 3
The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers
Photoshop Classic Effects
Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3
Photoshop CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks
www.kelbytraining.com (this site is LOADED with amazingly detailed, step by step tutorials on photography, post processing and much, much more)

Author: Joe McNally (this guy is a lighting master and has videos on kelbytraining.com)
The Moment It Clicks

Author: Ben Wilmore
Photoshop CS3 Studio Techniques

Author: Deke McClelland
Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-on-One

Author: Matt Kloskowski (videos on kelbytraining.com)
The complete guide to Photoshop's most powerful feature Layers

DGrin Forums - www.dgrin.com is a great place to post your photos for feedback from professionals and amateurs alike around the world. There are thousands of members and many of whom do not mind taking the time to provided very useful feedback and suggestions.

YouTube: Digital Photography 1 on 1 series provides very informative techniques for a variety of shooting situations and skill levels.

LensProToGo.com - Rent those expensive lenses for very little money and get to see why the pro glass makes such a difference without having to invest thousands of dollars. This is a great place to check out lenses, camera bodies (yes even Canon EOS 1D MKIII) and even rent studio space fully equipped with lighting and backdrops so all you need to do is walk in with your subject and your camera(s).

Hope this helps.

I posted the following comment in a thread awhile back. (Teresa, if this is a forum instead of a blog, It would have been a lot easier for me to link to it. Hint, hint.)

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Here are my takes on what separates pros' and amateurs' work.

Pros have to earn a living from their work, and amateurs do not.

Pros' work serve their clients' wishes, and are constrained by cost/return ratio and time. Amateurs' work serve their own wishes, and are not constrained by cost/return ratio or time.

Pros may need to possess a wide range of skill (equipment) to work in different genres to have enough assignments. Amateurs can focus on only a single genre of their liking (and become very good at it).

Pros need to be able to consistently produce work of sufficient quality. Amateurs have the luxury to produce occasional work of top quality.

In these contexts and for these reasons, I have found many advanced amateurs' work surpassing many pros'. It is therefore impossible for anyone to view a single image without any additional information and decide if it is by a pro or by an amateur. (The comments above are analogous to Peter Lynch's suggestion that an individual investor actually has many advantages over the professional investors, for similar reasons.)

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For the many of you too young to recognize who Peter Lynch is, I have another example. We must all know of a grandma who has a killer recipe that is either superior to any found in the restaurants, or not found anywhere else. But grandma would never make it as a line chef in a restaurant, or would want to.

Unlike becoming a brain surgeon or a astronaut, one can learn to become an execellent photographer (etc.) on one's own. As far as I know, Ansel Adams never went to a photography school.

So read books, visit galleries, shoot, and shoot, and shoot. Then show, and show, and show. Pretty soon, others would mistake you for a pro. Then thumb your nose and tell them you can do better than the pros, for the above reasons.

I do have a calibrated monitor so this is about the skin smoothing on impromptu.

Definitely a little too heavy on smoothing the skin. Keep a little bit more original detail there - nothing wrong with fixing some imperfections, taking away wrinkles, smoothing things out - but when you go this far, people do start looking fake and it takes away from the photo.

Scott Kelby does have some great videos - also check out Lynda.com and great Photoshop teacher on there named Chris Orwig. He has lots of great information about retouching and how far to take things and he's just really a cool guy to listen to.

I see more digital imaging here than photography. Nice images, but I'd like to see more photos.

Some of these comments are ridiculous. Especially the comments about too much skin smoothing, too much Photoshop, the eyes look over-done, and yada yada yada. It seems to me that people who can't post-process resent people who can. Photoshop is part of the game; get over it. Why don't you ask the person in the picture how she feels about the way her eyes look or the the way her skin looks?

Also, a number of people here think any photo that took thought or was set up is somehow too "pro"... how is anyone going to learn how to be a better photographer by looking at snapshots all day long? It seems to me that some people just expect this to be a gallery of mediocre photos by mediocre photographers ... but I think it should be a place where mediocre photographers can learn from the better photographers so we ALL can be better.

Instead of just flatly criticizing a photo, try asking questions about why the photographer made the choices he did. Instead of criticizing the post processing, throw ideas around and again ask questions about how the look was achieved.

Constructive criticism should be the rule, panning a photo with a quick sentence just comes across as bitter.

Beautiful work, Randy!

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Mark. The photo that seems to be referenced the most was actually processed over a year ago; if asked, I would probably not process it the same way today -- although that was the target result back then. I can tell you that as you learn new processing techniques, you will be amazed at how fast your perspective changes and how differently you view a photo today that you saw 6 months ago, a week ago ... heck, even yesterday. I definitely recommend periodically going back through your photo archives to see what you see now. You may find some shots that you didn't think were usable before, but with new-found techniques and skills, there may just be one of those "killer shots".

I really enjoy this venue and having discussions with people from all backgrounds. It's a great place to share ideas and meet new people and learn. Shortly after this review was released, I received my Certified Professional Photographer designation from the Professional Photographers Certification Commission, which disqualifies me from participating in future challenges and contests on RAW. I still frequently visit the site to see what others are doing because I really do just enjoy seeing and sharing everything photography.