Jacob Maentz’s Blog

Here are some images from a Debut (turning 18) I photographed a couple of weeks ago. Sisters, Krizia and Kirsten were the debutants celebrating their special day together. A fun event and great family!

Here are some selected photos from Robert John & Sheryllyn’s wedding last June 14th, 2009. Preparation was at the Hilton Cebu Resort and the wedding and reception was held at Amara in Liloan, Cebu.

I’m posting some pictures from a wedding I had this past Saturday. Joseph and Jean are from Cebu, but they are living in New York. My wife Oma assisted me and we had a fun time with the couple and their family and friends. Hope you enjoy the selected images.

Sometimes we can forget that we don’t need to go far to find something captivating to shoot. Last week, while being weighed down by office work, I found inspiration from a least expected place–a papaya tree.

I often find myself sitting in front of the computer for hours, editing, uploading and doing website optimizing. I try not to spend full days doing this, but sometimes it’s inevitable. It’s in these long days that I feel the creative juice leaking out of me. I’m tunneled into what I’m doing and that’s it.

As Freeman Patterson states in his book, Photography and the Art of Seeing, “preoccupation with self is the greatest barrier to seeing, and the hardest one to break.” I have recently felt this statement to be true in life and started some simple daily acts to help prevent this barrier to seeing. One of them being to take my camera and explore something new to shoot.

Last week, I took an hour away from my busy day and looked for something to shoot in my backyard. To my surprise I found more than one interesting subject. I ended up spending more than two hours shooting and had some interesting images in the end. However, what’s most important is I felt inspired and full of creative energy after the shoot.

Freeman Patterson says, “one barrier to seeing is the mass stimuli surrounding us. We are so bombarded with visual and other stimuli that we must block out most of them in order to cope. Instead of seeing everything, we select a few stimuli and organize these. Then once we have achieved order in our lives, we stick with the realities we have established. We seldom try to rediscover the possible value of ignored stimuli, and are reluctant to do so as long as the old ones still seem to be working. We develop a tunnel vision, which gives us a clear view of the rut ahead of us, but prevents us from seeing the world around us.”

He goes on to say, “a photographer who wants to see, a photographer who wants to make fine images, must recognize the value of the familiar. Your ability to see is not increased by the distance you put between yourself and your home. If you do not see what is all around you everyday, what will you see when you go to Tangiers? The subject matter may be different, but unless you can get to the essence of the subject matter through keen observation, and express it through your photographs, it doesn’t matter how exotic your locale.”

Some great words of advice that I hope to return to often.

I have begun selling some of my fine art prints in local Cebu City hotels this past week. We put up a nice display yesterday in the Lobby Shop at the Marco Polo Plaza and have plans for a display in the Shangri-La and Marriott by the end of April. We thought it would be a good idea to offer images of Cebu Island to visitors as an alternative gift/memorabilia. These are the first matted fine art prints available to visitors in Cebu City and we are hopeful they will do well. I have started out with about 20 different images, trying to represent different aspects of Cebu. Food, people, culture, and landmarks. I plan to add different images as time passes and of course I’m always looking to shoot new pictures. There should be a press release at some point after the displays are up in the other two hotels.

If you’re from Cebu or are planning a trip here, please take some time to have a look at the images. You can always order direct from me as well to save a little if your in the area (the prices are lower than on my stock photography site and hotel rates). I have posted the details below.

These ready to frame signed and matted fine art prints are printed on professional Kodak Supra Endura archival paper lasting 100 years in home displays and 200 years in dark storage. Professionally cut Tru-White Standard Core Mattes are acid-free complete with archival polypropolene bags. A perfect lasting memory from Cebu.

6” x 9” Print (9” x 12” w/ matte) — Hotel Rate: 720 Php (plus tax)

8“ x 12” Print (12” x 16” w/Matte) — Hotel Rate: 1,150 Php (plus tax)

12” x 18” Print (18” x 24” w/ Matte) — Hotel Rate: 2,120 Php (plus tax)

Images from the Marco Polo Plaza Lobby Shop:

PRESS RELEASE: Humanity Photo Awards (HPA) 2009

This is Yang from China Folklore Photographic Association (CFPA), organizer of the Humanity Photo Awards (HPA), the ONLY worldwide folklore photo contest. It is aimed to everyone who loves folkore cultures. This year, HPA is co-organized with the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Comittee (GUAGOC) and UNESCO.

In addition to the contest, CFPA will organize a folklore exhibition in the Guanghzou Asian Village for the 16th Asian Games. We hope we can include most of the countries in the World. We also will organize the winners of HPA2009 to shoot the view of Asian Games Stadiums during the openning ceremony and arrange them to come to Guangzhou in 2010 for Asian Games.(Air tickets and hospitality are afforded by CFPA) It is an unmissable chance for us to promote the folklore cultures of each countries. We have received a lot of photos from different countries so far but we are still missing photos from your country, so if you or any of your friends would like to promote the culture of your country, take a chance and feel free to join this contest.

Considering that postal mail might be too long for overseas participants and to encourage more nationalities to take part of HPA2009, the head office of HPA2009 has decided to postpone the entry deadline from 15th April to 25th May (The date postmarked by the Beijing Post Office will be the deemed arrival date).

This will give participants more time to prepare their photo entries and make sure their photo works arrive in China on time.

HUMANITY PHOTO AWARDS(HPA)2009

Collecting MEMORIES OF THE MANKIND

Background:
HPA2009 contest, co-organized by China Folklore Photographic Association (CFPA), UNESCO and Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC), was formally launched on 16th September, 2008. It aims to call upon worldwide photographers, professional or amateur, to record the world’s folklore cultures, spread and share the diverse cultures among mankind. Under the support of GAGOC, A World Folklore Photo Exhibition will be held in Guangzhou Asian Village as the main cultural exchange activity of 16th Asian Games which will include the winners’ photos of HPA contests concerning 118 countries. The exhibiton photos will be selected from the entries of HPA2009. Therefore, we hereby invite you to participate in this worldwide event. Your outstanding work might be the ONE shown in the Gallery of 16th Asian Games and witnessed by the world.

About HPA:
1. The only world folk photo contest all over the world;

2. Launched by CFPA(China Folklore Photographic Association);

3. Co-organized by UNESCO and GAGOC;

4. Five successful contests in the past;

5. 94 nationalities have participated in the HPA contests;

6. Each entry should consist of a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 photographs;

7. Attractive bonus plus transportation fee and a 3-day hotel accommodation for the ceremony if you win the award;

8. 166 awards in total;

9. Famous and honest judges all from different nationalities.

Mission:
To call upon responsible photographers who respect life and love their life to take their cameras, in the context of special series of photographs;
To explore and rescue the endangered folklore cultures of all the world’s nationalities by means of photography; to profoundly record the changes and evolution of various folklore cultures in a genuine and vivid form;
To record, spread and share the multi-cultures of the world, to enhance mutual understanding and exchanges of human beings and to promote the world peace and development.

Schedule:
Submission deadline: May 25th 2009(The date postmarked by the Beijing Post Office will be the deemed arrival date)
Judging deadline: September 15th 2009
Press Conference Date: June 6th 2009 (will announce the host city)
Award Ceremony and WFPA (World Folklore Photographers Association) Opening Ceremony:
September 16th 2009
Tour Exhibition: September 2009—September 2011

Categories:
A. Portrait & Costume
B. Architecture
C. Living and Production Custom
D. Festivities
E. Education, Recreation, Sports & Technology
F. Traditional Rites

Awards:
Humanity Photo Grand Awards: 6 (one for each category)
Humanity Photo Documentary Awards: 60
Humanity Photo Nomination Awards: 100

How to participate in HPA 2009? Please view the link below:
(Please read Entry Rules carefully so that you can successfully participate in the contest)
http://www.china-fpa.org/

NEW : email entries accepted:
We will exceptionally accept entries coming from your email but considering the security of the Internet, we still encourage participants to send their photo works by post in case of the loss of your email. If you wish to send your entries through the Internet, we recommend you to send all your photos with the filled entry form to hpa2009@china-fpa.org through http://www.yousendit.com/.

The resolution should be no smaller than 300dpi and short size no smaller than 20cm.
Digital photos, editable caption in .txt or .doc file and entry forms should be saved together as a zip file.

Here is an example below for you to fill up your information we request on yousendit form:
To: hpa2009@china-fpa.org
From: your email address
Subject : HPA2009 Entry
Enter message: your name / your email address

CFPA (China Folklore Photographic Association)
CFPA (China Folklore Photographic Association)
Address: Suite312, Building14, Wen Huiyuan, Haidian District, Beijing
Mailing address: P.O. Box8006, Beijing 100082, PRC
Tel & Fax: (00)86 10 6225 2175
Email: hpa2009@china-fpa.org
Website: www.china-fpa.org/en

I spent the last two weeks in Daytona, Florida for the annual Bike Week at Bruce Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona. I believe this was my third Bike Week I’ve attended, but never to enjoy the festivities….always for work. This trip was no exception, I spend my time there working for my Dad’s company Boogey Lights installing accent lighting on Harley Davidson Motorcycles. In 2005, I learned how to install Boogey lights and traveled to a few different rallies with my Dad earning a little extra cash. I even ended up working his company for a portion of that year. Now my dads company only attends two rallies a year (Bike Week and Biketoberfest) with his dealers covering all the others. They always save a spot for me as one of the installers, so it’s worth the long trip over the Pacific to earn a little extra cash. I don’t think many photographers would pass up an opportunity to earn some extra money! For me it works out great and I get to travel and spend some time visiting people along the way.

I fly to Seoul on Sunday to spend a few days with my good friend Hassan and then its back home to see my family. I can’t wait to see Liam, Amaya and of course my wife Oma. I hope the weather will be good in Seoul. I’m planning on spending a lot of time shooting and walking the city.

At these motorcycle rallies I rarely get the time to pull out my camera and snap some shots. This year I made a bigger effort to take pictures in my down time (we had more down time this year than in the past as well). Although we are not setup at the places I would really like to shoot (biker bars, mud wrestling pits, etc.) I tried to stop interesting looking people as they walked by and take their portrait. A few good shots came of this; it’s better than not taking out the camera at all. I wont post them here, but there are some R-rated images if anyone would like to see. Some of these bikers wear some crazy outfits.

Destination Daytona Lane

Biker at Destination Daytona Bikeweek

A biker on his bike at Bikeweek, Daytona.

Daytona Bikeweek Panoramic from our Boogey Lights tent.

Biker with tattoos

Chopper with Boogey Lights. This is what we were installing.

Vinnie from the old Orange County Choppers show and me

The more I find myself in front of the computer, the more I want to be away from it doing something else. Particularly, being out in the field and taking photographs or spending more time with my kids. Let’s face it though, if your images are left to sit on your hard drive; is it likely that those images will ever be used? Perhaps, if you are a well known photographer and have returning clients who need particular images. Even so, with the digital age and flux of emerging photographers, every advantage to get your images out there could work to your advantage.

Today there is an overwhelming amount of free and open source technology where you can showcase your images. It can be quite daunting to decide where to upload your images/portfolio to; photoblogs, microstock sites, your own website, flickr, multiply, to name a few. Dan Heller gives some great advice on the pros and cons of hosting your own photography website and the business of photography. For me, I want to rank as high as I can in Google searches for particular photo keywords. I have tried to accomplish this by hosting my images on my own stock website in addition to other photo sharing sites, like Flickr. Again, Dan Heller covers this topic very well in this article.

It’s inevitable that you will spend a good amount of time on the computer uploading your images, adding captions, keywords, etc. if you want to rank well in search engines. However, when there are ways to make this process easier and less time consuming it’s good to explore available options.

My online work flow begins with uploading my images to my own stock website. I am currently using Gallery2 software and I use a remote interface called GalleryRemote to make uploading easier. This is where I add titles, descriptions, keywords, etc to all of my images. This is the most important place for my photos to be, because this is where my photos rank the best on searches (in addition to the place where customers can buy the image). After my images are watermarked in Gallery2, I use a module called Gallery2Flickr which exports my images to directly to my Flickr account. This module alone saves me a lot of time. With a push of a button my photos are exported to my Flickr account with all of their titles, descriptions and keywords. I couldn’t imagine spending the time to re-upload my images to Flickr manually. Flickr is a great place for photo sharing and getting more exposure (many of my sales have come from first seeing the image in Flickr). Additional, some of my Flickr images do really well in search rankings (especially with Yahoo). I always make sure each of my Flickr photos has a link back to my website. From Flickr I can import my images to Facebook or MySpace with another push of the button. Life is getting easier.

I am also exploring more the use of RSS Feeds. Currently, I have a photo RSS Feed for all of my new images. I have noticed that I receive a lot of links back to my site from the submitted feed, which can’t hurt search rankings.

That’s a little information about my online photo workflow. I would love to hear some feedback or other ideas that people are using.