I’ve long been fascinated by the pin-up calendars from the 1950s and 1960s. For reasons I don’t pretend to understand, they were one of the only socially tolerated — if not exactly socially acceptable — outlets for nude imagery in the US at that time. The most famous calendar girl model, of course, was Marilyn Monroe, who had posed for one of the calendar companies before she became famous.
Here are some examples of calendars from that era:
Calendar companies would custom print a company’s name and information on calendars that they could give away as promotional items. Most of the companies had a substantial catalog of images to choose from, with both nude and non-nude images. There were also many styles, but the most popular featured a single image with tear-off calendar sheets at the bottom. The popularity was probably due to the fact that it would have been fairly cheap to produce.
There were even some companies that produced nude calendars that came with an acetate sheet on them with a drawn-on bathing suit that could then be peeled off to reveal the nude image beneath. I assume this was to get around some kind of censorship law or to make the calendars more socially acceptable when delivered. I suppose it could have also added to the percieved naughtiness of the calendar, though.
A nude calendar with a drawn-on bathing suit that could be peeled off. I won’t be attempting this.
Recently, I decided it would be fun to do an homage to the calendars from this era. I’m not sure why the idea took me all of a sudden. A week into the new year is really not the ideal time for starting a calendar project, but… once it occurred to me, it just seemed like a good quarantine project.
My original thought was to set up a shoot specifically to create images in the style of some of the old calendars, but almost on accident, I stumbled across a series of photos in my library that already had the right feel:
Other than her tattoos, this shot of Juno could easily be from the 1950s or 1960s. The pose, her haircut, everything felt pretty on the nose with almost a Bunny Yeager feel to it. This was a perfect picture for prototyping the idea and saved me the expense of setting up a new shoot, at least for now.
Designing the Calendar
I didn’t want to exactly mimic any of the existing calendars, but rather create a modern calendar reminiscent of and inspired by those older ones. My main inspirations for the calendar portion were the Walt’s 505 Club and Denver Supply Company, Inc. calendars in the gallery above. I opted not to use the graphics honoring historical figures, though, and stick with just numbers to keep them less cluttered feeling.
I worked in Affinity Publisher to create my first design prototype. For this first version, there were no tear-off sheets and it was intended to simply show what the final calendar would look like.
Font Choice
For the calendar numbers and month names, I used Bodoni 72, which appears to be what the the Walt’s 505 Club calendar uses. For the rest of the text, I opted for Helvetica Neue. It’s anachronistic, since that font didn’t exist until the early 1980s, but I tried both Helvetica and Helvetica Neue and just thought it looked better with Helvetia Neue. As I said earlier, I’m not trying to exactly replicate those historical calendars.
Layout
The calendars from that era I’ve found come in a few different sizes. The most common size for the tear-off style of calendar seems to be 12″ x 19″, which works out well, because my photo printer maxes out at 13″ x 19″ borderless. That means I can print full page and then just trim a half inch off of each side.
I went with a two month calendar layout and played around with a lot of different design and font options until I landed on this, which feels sufficiently reminiscient of classic pinup calendars for me.
The one common element of the original calendars that I’m missing is the promotional text. I tried a few options, but I just like the simplicity of not having it. I also don’t have anything I really need to promote right now. While I do occasionally take paying gigs, photography is mostly a creative outlet for me and not something I’m trying to make a living off at the moment.
From Prototype to Calendar
Once I was happy with the design, the next step was to actually turn it into a physical calendar with tear-off sheets. I removed the calendar content from my digital prototype, and turned it into the calendar backboard. I replaced the calendar with a little promotional text. This text will never be visible unless somebody rips off the last month, but if they do, they’ll know how to contact me to find out if I’m doing another calendar for next year.
I moved the calendar content to a separate 4″ x 12″ document and then laid out all the months of 2021. I included all US federal holidays (in red), as well as many other major holidays. Space in this format is tight, so I couldn’t include every holiday, but I tried to include the major ones from the major religions. I did boot Columbus Day in favor of Indigeneous Peoples’ Day (they’re the same day), because I only had room for one and, well… fuck Columbus.
Unfortunately, the decision to go with a two-up layout means I can’t print them on normal letter size paper and had to order a ream of legal size paper for the project.
Laying out a calendar is a surprisingly tedious task. 😬
Construction
Once all the digital files were created and proofed, it was time to create the first calender to see if it works. There’s two parts here: the backboard, which I printed on my photo printer, and the calendar sheets, which I printed on my color laser printer.
Printing the Backboard
For the first calendar, I went with the best paper stock I had handy: Canon Platinum Pro N (Glossy). This is shinier and higher quality than the historical calendars that inspired the project, but will result in a nice image. I might order a matte or satin paper if I decide to make more, but this works and looks pretty good.
Printing the Calendar Pages
The individual calendar sheets are printed on a premium legal-sized office paper on a color laser printer. There are six pages total (two months per page). These will be cut out and stapled to the backboard to create the calendar.
Trimming the Calendar Pages
Unfortunately, I don’t have a guillotine cutter, so I used the best thing do I have: a Dahl professional heavy duty rotary cutter. It generally worked well, but was tough to be as precise as I needed while keeping the pages together.
Trimming the Back Board
I also used the Dahl to cut the backer board. That was an easier cut, since I didn’t have to keep multiple sheets together.
Assembling the Calendar
The final step is stapling the calendar sheets to the backer board. I used a cheap saddle-stich stapler to attach the sheets.
And once assembled, we have our calendar:
Just needs a hole punched and it’s ready for the wall!
Lessons Learned
With any kind of project like this, the first one you make is going to be imperfect, and this wasn’t an exception. Still, I’m really pleased with how it came out. Although there are some minor issues, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to hang this first one on the wall.
If I decide to make any more, there are a few changes I’ll make. My margins are a bit too small in a few places. The rotary cutter did a nice job, but it’s not as precise as a good guillotine cutter, and I lost a little bit of my margins to the overprint required for borderless printing. Some cutting guides on the calendar printouts will also help during assembly.
All-in-all, though, I’m quite happy with the result!
If you’re really into photography, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve at least thought about selling prints, and if you’ve thought about selling prints, you’ve probably given some though to creating limited editions. It’s also possible you went no further than just thinking about it, because the idea can seem daunting and, unfortunately, it’s hard to find good information about it.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, though.
Let’s go down the rabbit hole of photographic editions and see how they work.
Open vs. Limited Edition
When you decide to sell a print, the first thing you need to decide is whether you’re going to issue the print as an open edition or a limited edition. If you already sell prints, and haven’t explicitly put a limit on how many you’ll create, you’ve decided to issue an open edition of those images, whether you realized it or not. With an open edition, you can make and sell as many prints as you want, and there are really no formalities required. You’re just making and selling a product, as many as the market will bear.
You can issue a formal open edition that has traits more commonly associated with limited editions—such as a signature or a certificate of authenticity—just with no limit on how many you can produce, however the bulk of open editions are informal editions without any of that.
With limited edition prints, on the other hand, you’re making a promise to your buyers that you will create, at most, a specific number of prints of that image. This limit creates the potential for scarcity, which may allow you to charge a higher price for in-demand prints and may cause the price of those print to appreciate over time. There’s no guarantee, of course. Limited editions aren’t magic. There has to be a market for the image that’s greater than the size of the edition for it to have any impact at all.
There are certain customs and formalities that are generally followed when issuing a limited edition. Some of these originate from law, but mostly they are customs that have evolved out of earlier reproduction techniques like woodcuts and vinyl cuts. Each print in a limited edition is typically signed by the artist and numbered. It’s also common to take steps to ensure that prospective buyers have a way to authenticate the print, such as by issuing a certificate of authenticity with contact information backed by good records about the production of the edition and about the sales of edition prints.
Choosing an Edition Type
It’s common for photographers without a lot of name recognition to assume there’s no value in issuing a limited edition because they may never exhaust (or, in other words, sell out) even a small edition¹. That’s an understandable way of looking at it, but here’s another way: A limited edition can end up being a huge gift to your early supporters. You may not ever become well known, but you might, and if you work at it, you will definitely be more known in the future than you are today.
It’s completely possible that your early limited edition prints could end up appreciating in value, and that’s a nice “thank you” to the people who supported you early on. Also, remember, once you’ve sold copies of a print outside of a limited edition, you generally won’t be able to create a limited edition of that image², so you may also want to identify the images you’ll want to issue as a limited edition, even if you’re not ready to actually issue it yet. Knowing which ones you might want to use can help you avoid accidentally losing the ability to publish a limited edition of that image later.
On the other hand, you don’t want to issue every print as a limited edition unless you’re famous or there’s a large demand for your work for some other reason. Limited editions are more work for you and only have the potential to increase a print’s value if there’s substantial demand.
For most photographers, you should only do limited editions for those images that you really like, are really proud of, or think are particularly sellable. Otherwise, you’re creating extra work for yourself without getting any real benefit from it.
Determine an Edition Size
When you do decide to issue a limited edition, the very next decision you need to make is the size of the edition. The larger the edition, the less potential scarcity, so the smaller the potential impact on the price… but the more prints you can sell.
Editions in older reproduction techniques, such as woodcuts, vinyls cuts, and lithographs, were often done in very large sizes—hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of prints—because they were essentially the mass production techniques of the day. Early photographic editions were typically smaller than that, but still usually involved at least a few dozen or a few hundred prints. The more recent trend in photography has been toward much smaller editions, with 10 and 25 being very common edition sizes these days.
While the edition size is a personal choice you have to make, the general guidance I would give is to try not to create an edition that’s larger than the number of prints you think you can sell during your lifetime. The ideal situation is to publish editions that are smaller than the number of people potentially interested in buying it. If there are fewer potential buyers than inventory (aka the edition size), having a limit creates no actual scarcity, and you won’t get a higher price than you could’ve gotten doing an open edition.
Of course, there’s guesswork involved so you won’t always nail the edition size, which is okay. Over time, you’ll get a better feel for demand.
You can create an edition size of one. These types of “editions” are usually called “one offs” or “uniques” and are labeled 1/1.
Print Sizes
If you’re going to create multiple size prints of the same image, the number of each size should be decided right up front and set in stone before you create any edition prints of any size. If you don’t do that, you’re giving yourself a loophole to expand the size of the edition after you’ve sold prints, and that’s not really fair to your buyers.
I not only decide all of the size before making any edition prints, I also include all editions of the same print on the certificate of authenticity (which I’ll talk about later), like this:
This certificate is for print 2/10 of the 11×16½ edition of this image. It also shows that I have authorized 20 8×12 prints of the same image. This way, any prospective buyer now or in the future knows about all of the prints that could ever be made of this image when making their purchase decision.
Edition Prints & Proofs
One of the oddities of limited editions, inherited from older, mechanical reproduction techniques, is that an edition may contain additional prints beyond the numbered member prints. Typically, each print in an edition is numbered (usually, but not necessarily, based on the order they were created), and once the whole edition is done, no more prints may be created. However, there can be other prints called proofs, usually printed as part of the creation process, that do not have to be destroyed.
There are several types of proofs that are allowed to exist without violating the edition limit, however, you generally should not sell proofs of your own prints. The types of proofs that you can create include:
Artist Proof: Before printing an edition, you typically need to create some number of test (or proof) prints to get your print settings dialed in. The final proof is referred to as the “Artist Proof” (or sometimes “Artist’s Proof”), and is not numbered. Instead of being numbered (e.g. 1/10), the final proof is marked “AP” (or, less frequently, “PA”, “E.A”, or “E. d’A”). Typically, the artist or printer will keep this proof. Artist proofs shouldn’t enter circulation until the artist dies or something unusual happens (such as the artist declaring bankruptcy). When artist proofs do enter circulation, they often sell at a premium over the regular edition prints.
H’ors de Commerce Proof: Another type of acceptable proof is the h’ors de commerce print. Translated from the French, it means “not for sale”. It was a common practice with many types of print editions, for the artist to mark a small number of prints “HC”, usually to be given as thank you gifts to their publisher, printer, patron, model, or others involved with the production of the images.
Printer’s Proof: This type of print, usually marked “PP” or less often “BAT” (which stands for “bon à tirer”, which is French for “good to print”) is not usually part of limited editions of photographs, but conceivably could in the case of a very large edition printed by a third party lab or printer. Printer’s proofs are used like artist proofs when there are multiple printers or press operators, each needing a signed-off print to compare their output against. Sometimes printer’s proofs are marked the same as artist proofs (“AP”) if they were actually created by the original artist. Printer’s proofs are typically kept by the printer or publisher.
It is perfectly acceptable to keep your artist’s proof and also to create a small number of HC proofs to give as gifts to the people who helped you create your edition. Giving an HC print to your model, assistant, or printer, is fine. On the other hand, you should never sell proofs or use them as a way to extend an edition after exhausting it.
I would also discourage you from creating a large number of proofs when creating small editions. If you issue an edition of 10, you shouldn’t also have 10 HC proofs in circulation. My personal rule of thumb is to limit HC proofs to no more than 20% of the edition size, or 3, whichever is higher. Because I do my own printing, I only ever create one artist proof, which is the last proof I make before starting to produce the edition, and that one stays with me.
Mounting Edition Prints
While prints in a limited edition don’t have to be mounted, it’s pretty standard practice to do so. Usually they’re sold with a simple white mat with archival properties. Above a certain price point, prints are usually mounted in museum-grade rag board. For more information on mounting your prints, you can read this post.
Signature and Edition Marks
Limited edition prints are almost always signed and contain “edition marks”, which give information about the print, such as the edition size, and which print in the edition this is. The signature and edition marks usually go in one of three places: on the front of the print, usually (but not always) below the image, on the reverse side of the print, or on the mat. Edition marks should be done by hand, by the photographer, and should be written in pencil or an acid-free, archival pen such as a Pigma Micron by Sakura.
Production day. Three prints (in two different sizes) of my most recent limited edition print. For this one, I put the edition marks and signature on the front, in the margin below the print and mounted them with extra space around the print so the marks are visible when framed.
Where you put your edition marks is mostly a matter of personal preference. Historically, the back of the print was the most common place for edition marks on photographs. More recently, putting them on the front of the print (which has been common for other types of printing for a long time) is becoming more common with photographs, probably because it allows the signature and print information to be visible when framed.
You should only put edition marks on the mat rather than on the print if you flush mount your prints. Flush mounts are semi-permanent, so marks on the mat will usually stay with the print. The other main type of mount—the hinge mount—is designed to make it easy to take the print out, so edition marks on the mat would generally be a bad choice if you use a hinge mount. For more information on flush and hinge mounting, try this post.
There is no required order or location when it comes to edition marks, but if you plan to put them on the front, it’s common practice to put them in the margin below the print, with the print number and edition size on the left and the signature on the right. You can also put the print’s title in the center if you wish.
These conventions about where to sign and put edition marks are just that – conventions. Although it’s often a good idea to stick with conventions unless you have a reason not to, you can put the edition marks anywhere you want. For my first two limited edition prints, I put the title on the left next to the edition number. I didn’t learn that the center was the customary location until later.
My first limited edition print and its certificate of authenticity. I put the edition marks on the front of the print, but I put the title in a non-standard location.
Certificates of Authenticity
Nearly all limited edition prints come with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist. A lot of artists have a negative reaction at first to the idea of a issuing a certificate of authenticity. This may come from the fact that a lot of cheap, mass-produced products use certificates of authenticity as a marketing gimmick, but they really are a good idea for any kind of hand-created art, including limited edition photographs. Having a signed document that accompanies the print and includes your contact information means that anyone who obtains this print or is trying to authenticate this print, will know how to reach you.
There are really very few specific requirements when it comes to certificates of authenticity. If you do a quick web search, you’ll see there’s a lot of variety in how they look and what information they contain.
A selection of different results searching for “photography certificate of authenticity”
The only real requirements is the image name (if there is one), the edition size, the print number, your contact information, and a signature. Some artists include some kind of statement about the edition or the print or a thumbnail of the image to make it easier to match the certificate up to its print, but I’ve seen many certificates that do neither.
Another thing that’s not required, but many photographers do, is take steps to make it harder to counterfeit your image, for example, by including a serial number on a tamper-proof holographic sticker on the print and/or certificate.
You can buy holographic stickers with unique numbers on them. I got these on eBay. There are also services specifically designed for limited editions that provide stickers and recordkeeping services through a website or mobile app.
I put a holographic sticker both on the certificate of authenticity and the back of the print itself. I also record the number of the sticker from the print on the certificate of authenticity and keep a spreadsheet that lists both numbers for every limited edition print I’ve made.
The back of one of my limited edition prints contain a second signature and set of edition marks well inside the margins. This gives the customer the option to trim their print while retaining the edition information and signature.The holographic sticker on the certificate. These stickers are tamper-resistant; if you try to remove them, the word “void” appears both on the removed sticker as well as the place it used to be affixed.
It has also become somewhat common to include information about the paper, dyes, or process used to create the print. This re-assures the buyer that they are getting an archival-quality print and that information can also be used to further authenticate the print.
A lot of photographers just type up a certificate in a word processor, then print it, and sign it. And really, that’s all you need. You don’t need to make a fancy certificates or go to great lengths to prevent counterfeiting. Unless you’re quite famous, the chances of someone actually counterfeiting your work is very slim. Despite that, there is still marketing value to creating an aesthetically pleasing, harder-to-counterfeit certificate and it’s not really that much extra work.
I put my limited edition prints in crystal bags to protect them and keep them dust free. I affix the certificate of authenticity to the back of the mat using archival mounting corners. This makes the certificate easy to remove if needed, but makes it less likely that the print and certificate will get separated unintentionally.
Record Keeping
Anybody can create a “certificate of authenticity”, so you need to back yours up with good record keeping and a way for people to contact you. There are services that will handle this for you and provide a web page people can use to authenticate your work. I don’t create enough limited edition prints to justify paying for a service like that, so I just keep good digital records (redundantly backed up!) and provide my e-mail address and phone number on the certificate for people to use if they want to authenticate the print. Because I haven’t used any of these third-party services, I’m not comfortable recommending one, though I can definitely see the value for someone who produces a lot of prints.
In case you’re wondering, I’m not currently set up to sell my limited edition prints online. You can see my limited edition prints in the image below. If you’re interested in buying one (or prints of any of my other images, for that matter), drop me an e-mail.
My current limited editions. From left to right: Bambii on the Cliffs #1 is available in an edition of 20 8x12s and 10 11×16½s; Triplicity is available in an edition of 10 8x10s and 10 11x14s; and Tree Swing is available in three sizes of 25 11x14s, 50 8x10s, and 50 4x5s.
Even some famous historical photographers have limited editions that are not exhausted. Nobody bats 1.000, so that possibility really shouldn’t discourage you from doing a limited edition.
There definitely are ways you can ethically do a limited edition of an image that was previously issued as part of an open edition. One way would be to track down each of the owners of the open edition prints. If you can account for all of the images and can retroactively make them part of the edition, or swap the open edition prints for a limited edition replacement, then you can ethically move forward with selling that print as a limited edition.
Once you’ve settled on a camera body, the next must-have purchase before you can get started shooting is a lens. There’s a lot to know about lenses, so buckle up and I’ll try and make some sense out of it for you.
Focal Length
Lenses come in a wide variety of “focal lengths”, which is an indication of the field of view that you can capture with the lens. Focal length is specified in millimeters, and is a measure of the distance between the lens and the image sensor or film plate when the subject is in focus.
Lower focal lengths are referred to as “wide angle” lenses because they let you take pictures that includes more of a scene, while high numbers are called “telephoto”, and let you take clear pictures of things that are some distance away. A lens that has a greater focal length than wide angle but less than telephoto is considered a “normal” or “standard” lens, since they are (roughly) equivalent to the field of view of the human eye.
The actual field of view for a lens is determined by both its focal length and the size of the sensor or film frame it’s being used with, which means that a 50mm lens on a full frame camera gives a different field of view than a 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera which gives a different field of view than a 50mm lens on a medium format camera.
The following table gives the approximate ranges of focal distances for wide angle and telephoto lenses for several common sensor sizes.
Sensor Size
Wide Angle
Telephoto
CX
<= 13mm
>= 31mm
Micro 4/3
<=17.5mm
>= 42.5mm
APS-C
<= 20mm
>= 65 mm
APS-H
<= 27mm
>= 50mm
Full Frame / 35mm
<= 35mm
>= 85mm
Medium Format (645)
<= 56mm
>= 137mm
Medium Format (Hasselblad)
<= 64mm
>= 245mm
To keep things simple, I’m going to express focal lengths in “full-frame equivalents” in rest of this post. If I refer to a “50mm” lens, I mean “50mm on a full frame camera or an equivalent lens on another body, such as a 38mm lens on an APS-H camera (1.7 crop factor), or 29mm lens on an APS-C camera (1.3 crop factor)”.
Prime vs. Zoom
There are two types of lenses available: prime and zoom. A prime lens has a single, fixed focal length, like 50mm, or 85mm. With prime lenses, if you want to include more or less of the scene in your image, you have to physically move further from or closer to your subject. The other type of lens is the zoom lens, which covers a selectable range of focal lengths such as 24-70mm, or 70-200mm. Zoom lenses give you a lot more options to frame your photo without having to physically move to a new location.
Traditional logic said that prime lenses are higher quality and that zoom lenses are a compromise for convenience, with the trade-off being that the images aren’t as sharp and are more prone to various forms of distortion. That traditional logic doesn’t really have much value these days, however. The majority of lenses made and sold now are zoom lenses because we reached a point several years ago where the image quality from a good zoom lenses became virtually indistinguishable from that of prime lenses.
If that’s true, you might be wondering why prime lenses are still made. The primary reason is that prime lenses are less expensive for comparable quality and focal distance, especially for “fast” lenses with an ƒ rating of 2.8 or less. While a professional grade 24-70mm ƒ2.8 lens might run you upwards of $1600, you can get a professional-grade 50mm ƒ1.8 lens for about $150.
A “faster” lens has a lower ƒ-rating and handles low light situations better.
Consumer vs. Professional
The cost of a lens is influenced by many factors, including the focal length and ƒ-rating, but the biggest impact on the price of a lens is the distinction between lenses targeted at consumers, and those targeted for professional use. There’s also a group of lenses that fall in between the two that are sometimes referred to as “prosumer” lenses.
Most professional-grade lenses are designed for full-frame or medium-format bodies, while nearly all consumer lenses are built for smaller “crop” sensor bodies. As smaller sensors have gotten better, we’ve started to see more professional quality glass being made for crop-sensor bodies, but it’s still pretty uncommon to find consumer-grade lenses made for full-frame and medium-format bodies, so if you opt for a larger sensor, expect to pay more (probably considerably more) for your lenses.
To give an example of just how much of a difference in price you can expect to see between consumer and professional lenses, let’s look at a common workhorse, “normal” zoom lens that runs from slightly wide angle to slightly telephoto, such as a 24-70mm or 24-85mm lens.
Note: the field of view on an 18-55mm APS-C lens is roughly equivalent to 24-70mm with a full frame lens
Here is a selection of DSLR lenses, all from the same manufacturer (Nikon), all with roughly the same focal length. The range of prices and features you see here is similar to other manufacturers’ lens lineups for both DSLR and mirrorless cameras:
Lens Type
Lens
Sensor
MSRP (7/2020)
Pro
AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ2.8 ED VR
Full Frame (FX)
$2099.95
Pro
AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ2.8 ED
Full Frame (FX)
$1599.95
Prosumer
AF-S Nikkor 24-85mm ƒ2.8-4 IF
Full Frame (FX)
$744.95
Prosumer
AF-S Nikkor 24-85mm ƒ3.5-4.5G ED VR
Full Frame (FX)
$499.95
Consumer
AF-P DX Nikkor 18-55mm ƒ2.5-5.6G VR
APS-C (DX)
$249.95
Consumer
AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G
APS-C (DX)
$199.95
Consumer
AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G ED II
APS-C (DX)
$119.95
That’s a pretty substantial range of prices for lenses with about the same basic field of view and functionality! The most expensive lens on the list is 17 times more expensive than the least.
If you’re looking to get started on a budget, the lower prices of the consumer lenses are going to be really appealing. The most expensive lens in the list for a crop sensor is $249.95, about a tenth of the price of the most expensive. Going back to my previous post in this series, crop sensor cameras aren’t just less expensive when initially buying the body. The lenses and some of the other accessories are also considerably less expensive, meaning you can often get a lot more bang for your buck with a crop-sensor camera, but your lens selection is going to be more limited, and most of the available lenses will be consumer grade.
You’re probably wondering what you’re going to miss out on if you buy less expensive consumer-grade lenses.
The main differences between professional and consumer lenses are as follows:
Construction & Repairability: Professional lenses are designed for full-time working photographers, so they’re made to take a beating and keep on working. They feature metal structural components and high-quality ground glass lens elements. Treated well, these lenses will work literally for decades. Consumer lenses, on the other hand, use more plastic components and lower-end consumer lenses may use polycarbonate lens elements rather than glass. Professional lenses are often repairable, but with consumer lenses, it’s usually more cost-effective to replace a lens if it breaks or gets damaged.
Optics: Consumer lenses are more likely to use plastic or lower quality glass for the optical elements, whereas professional lenses almost always use high-grade ground glass lenses that use extra-low dispersion glass. This means professional lenses will tend to be sharper across all ƒ-stop values, but the difference will be most noticeable in low light situations where the aperture is wide open. Professional lenses also are also far less likely to suffer noticeably from problems such as chromatic aberration, ghosting, and flaring.
Aperture: In large part because they use better optical components, professional lenses tend to be “faster” lenses with a lower ƒ-stop rating, meaning they let in more light and allow you to get better pictures with less light. If you look at the chart above, all the professional grade lenses have a fixed ƒ-rating of 2.8, meaning they can shoot at that value at all focal lengths. The prosumer lenses have ƒ-ratings that come in a range, meaning the camera’s ƒ-rating increases as you zoom out to longer focal lengths. The consumer lenses also give their ƒ-rating as a range, and a larger range at that, meaning as you zoom out, your lens becomes “slower”, and requires even more light to get good shots.
Weather Resistance: The higher quality construction often means that professional lenses can handle significantly harsher weather conditions without experiencing problems like condensation on the internal lens elements. It should be noted, however, that just because a lens is professional grade, does not mean it is weather proof or water proof, and you should take precautions to protect your gear whenever you shoot in inclement weather..
Size & Weight: This is something I didn’t realize before I bought my first professional grade lens, but professional lenses—especially zoom lenses—are much bigger and much heavier than comparable consumer lenses. The cheapest lens in the chart above weighs 7.4 oz, is 2.4 inches in diameter, and 2.9 inches long. The most expensive lens in the list is 38.4 oz, 3.4 inches in diameter, and 6 inches long. That means the most expensive lens is literally five times as heavy and over twice as long as the cheapest, despite having nearly identical focal lengths. The size difference is so dramatic that a lot of professional photographers will buy less expensive “vacation lenses” or “walking-around lenses” so they have something lighter and smaller to use in situations where they don’t need professional-grade glass.
Are these benefits worth the much higher price? That depends on your needs and your budget. For most working professionals and many serious enthusiasts who can afford them, the answer is a resounding yes. While they are expensive, they tend to last a long time. Often, you can use them for years on different camera bodies, with the lens retaining significant resale value even after years of use. If you ever have to shoot in difficult lighting situations, the lower ƒ-rating and better optics are really valuable, and if you ever shoot in tough weather conditions, it’s nice not having to worry quite as much about whether your equipment will survive and your pictures will come out well.
The fact that consumer lenses are “slower” than professional lenses is far less of an issue than it used to be in the film and early digital days where a few ƒ-stops could be the difference between being able to get a good shot and not. With a modern digital camera, you can often compensate for those few extra ƒ-stops by simply adjusting your camera’s ISO rating. You will degrade the quality of your images a bit, but increasing ISO by one or two stops won’t usually be noticeable unless you blow up your photos super large, and you can often compensate for some of that quality loss using a variety of post processing techniques.
You can get amazing images with consumer or prosumer equipment (or, hell, even your phone), so if you’re shooting for yourself, it’s really a matter of how much you’re willing and able to spend and whether you’ll ever be shooting in conditions where the benefits of a professional lens will even matter. In bright daylight, or in a studio with strobes, you’ll barely notice a difference, and if your intention isn’t to shoot professionally, the additional cost of professional gear may very well not be worth it for you, even if you can afford it.
Buying Used
Just like with camera bodies, you can get used gear at a lower price than new, sometimes substantially less. A lot of people get into photography, and then don’t find time for it and end up selling their equipment. Other times, people decide to switch systems, upgrade their gear, or just find that they don’t use certain lenses very often.
As with camera bodies, I wouldn’t generally recommend buying used consumer-grade lenses, but professional lenses and some prosumer lenses are built solidly enough that buying used can be a great option, just make sure you get to test the lens before buying it to make sure there are no scratches or other problems with the optics. Unlike camera bodies, the age of the lens really doesn’t matter all that much as long as the lens has been cared for and maintained and has the right mount for your camera body. An older lens with good optics and no damage to the focus or zoom mechanisms will take just as good pictures as a new lens.
First vs. Third Party
Every camera manufacturer produces (or partners with another company to produce), a line of lenses for their cameras. These “first party” lenses are not the only option. There are companies out there, such as Sigma, Zeiss, and Tamron, that produce lenses for other manufacturer’s cameras.
First party lenses are typically very high quality, and they’re often the only lenses that people look at. However, when buying lenses from your camera’s manufacturer, you usually pay at least some premium. Third party lenses come in a wide variety of price points and quality, so you have to be careful when comparing lenses from different manufacturers, but it is often possible to get a comparable quality lens for less money by going with a third party option.
To give an example, the Sigma ART 24-70mm ƒ/2.8 lens is very highly regarded as a fast, sharp professional lens, in the same ballpark in terms of image and build quality as the AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ2.8 ED lens from the list above. The Nikkor lens has an MSRP of $1,599.95 with a street price of around $1,450, while the Sigma has an MSRP of $1,299.00 and a street price of about $1,000, which amounts to about a 1/3 savings.
Which Lens or Lenses to Buy
So… the $64 question: which lens or lenses should you buy?
Among photographers I’ve met, there seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to buying lenses. One school of thought is that every lens has a use, and you should buy all the lenses your budget can handle as you have a need for them. The other school of thought says that zoom lenses have gotten so good, there really are only three lenses most photographers will ever need: a good ultrawide-angle zoom, like a 14-24mm, a “normal” zoom, such as a 24-70mm, and a telephoto zoom, such as a 70-200mm.
If you’re not shooting large groups of people, architectural interiors, or landscape panoramas, I would even argue that the ultrawide-angle zoom is only rarely necessary.
A wide-angle lens can be useful in certain kinds of nude photography, such as landscape nudes, but most nudes are shot with normal or slightly telephoto lenses.
Personally, I subscribe to the “most photographers only need a few lenses” school of thought. But… I also think that having a few high quality prime lenses in addition, can be a great investment. Probably 60% of what I shoot is with a 24-70mm lens, with maybe another 30% being shot with a 70-200mm. The remaining 10% are shot with a prime lens like a 50mm ƒ1.4, (aka the “nifty fifty”) or an 85mm ƒ/1.8 (sometimes called a “portrait prime”). Using a fast prime lens allows you to shoot below ƒ2.0, which can make it easier to achieve a desirable effect for portraits and head shots called “bokeh”.
This image, shot at 180mm, ƒ/2.8 demonstrates the bokeh effect you can get from using a fast and/or long lens. Notice how the background is out of focus, drawing the viewer’s attention to the subject.
I’ll talk about bokeh in great detail in a later post, but you don’t have to have a super fast prime lens to get a nice bokeh effect. You do need either a fast normal or wide angle lens, or a moderately fast telephoto lens, however, so if you can’t afford a fast zoom like a 24-70mm ƒ/2.8, then a fast 50mm or 85mm prime lens can be a great, and relatively inexpensive option for shooting portraits.
For shooting nudes, you’ll only need an ultra wide-angle lens if you’re going be shooting nudes as a small part of a larger scene, where your subject just one part of the overall landscape, or to shoot full body images in cramped spaces. For most photographer, an ultra wide is not a good choice for a first lens.
Similarly, while telephoto lenses can yield lovely portraits, they make it difficult to shoot in many common situations. Even in a good size studio, it may not be possible to shoot full length photos using a telephoto lens.
Most of the time, if you’ll be focusing on one person, or a few people, and maybe not even shooting full body shots, the best choice for a first lens is going to be either a zoom lens that includes the “normal” range such as a 24-70mm or 24-85mm, or a standard prime lens like a 50mm or 85mm.
The single most important piece of gear you need to get started with nude photography—or any type of photography, for that matter—is a camera. You must have some device capable of recording an image. Though there are many other items that most photographers would consider “essential”, the reality is, pretty much everything else beyond the camera (and a lens) is optional.
If you already own a camera, start with what you already have unless you know, with certainty, that it isn’t sufficient for your needs. After you’ve done a handful of shoots with the gear you own, you’ll have a much better idea about what you need and will be better equipped to decide what, if anything, you should buy.
If you don’t have a camera, but you do have a recent, high-end mobile phone, you actually have a good enough camera for doing available-light photography, though you may find models skeptical about working with a “photographer” whose only gear is their phone. That won’t be an issue if your first models are yourself, a spouse, significant other, or friends, however.
Buying a Camera
At some point, if you get serious, you’ll probably want to buy a better camera. Choosing what camera model to buy is a very subjective and personal decision and the most important factor in determining what camera to buy will most likely be how much money you have to spend.
Getting the very best camera on the market does you no good if the purchase doesn’t leave you enough money to buy lenses and accessories, pay for models, or cover your rent and other living expenses. The “very best” camera on the market is also likely to be overkill for your needs. High-end “flagship” camera models can run $4k, $6k, $8k, $10k or even much more. These models have features that really target professional photographers who are shooting every day and which really aren’t worth paying money for, for most hobbyists.
So, before you do anything else, figure out how much you can realistically afford to invest in a camera system, keeping in mind that you’ll need at least one lens in addition to a camera body (unless you buy a camera with an integrated lens, which I generally don’t recommend). You’ll also need at least one storage card (SF, CF, etc.) to store the pictures you take.
Most photographers will steer you away from what are called “kit lenses”– which are the lenses that are sold together with a camera body as a package. Kits often also include other accessories that you probably don’t already have if you’re buying your first serious camera: things like blower bulbs, lint-free cleaning cloths, storage cards, filters, a flash, a camera bag, or a remote camera trigger. Although there are exceptions, kit lenses tend to not be very good, so most serious photographers prefer to buy their body and lenses separately. I take a more muted view on this. While I buy bodies and lenses separately, I recognize that a kit can often be a great choice for someone just getting started who’se on a budget. While a kit lens will rarely be great, if you’re going to be shooting mostly outside at high ƒ-stops, you can get really good results with them.
We’ll talk about what ƒ-stops are more in later posts, but a “high” ƒ-stop means the aperture of your lens is closed down very small so it lets less light in. When you shoot outside during the day under a cloudless sky, you can easily shoot at ƒ16 or higher. At these high ƒ-stop ratings, the difference between a really good lens and a “just okay” lens won’t be very noticeable at all. If you’re planning to primarily shoot outdoors to start, a good camera body with a kit lens might be the best option in your price range, just realize that you’ll probably want to buy a better lens (or lenses) at some point in the future as you gain more experience and become more demanding.
Digital vs. Film
For most working professional photographers, the digital vs. film debate was settled long ago and—spoiler alert—digital won. That being said, film is very much alive and has been seeing quite a resurgence of late. A lot of photographers are once again enjoying the challenges of shooting film.
Honestly, anything that motivates you to shoot is good, so for many people, film is good. But… I’m going to put a stake in the ground and say: if you’re just getting started, start with digital.
Digital photography borrows most of its terminology and paradigms from film cameras, so most of the skills you’ll learn using a digital camera will transfer directly over to film. But, digital is much more forgiving, so you’ll likely find it far less frustrating. Once you’ve got a good grasp on the fundamentals of photography, switching to film will be much easier and less painful than trying to learn the fundamentals of photography at the same time that you’re learning the nuances of film.
Interchangeable vs. Integrated Lens
If you buy a camera with an integrated lens, you will be limited to the focal length and apertures of that lens. I’ll discuss when and why you might use different lenses in future posts, but getting a body that uses interchangeable lenses will give you a lot more flexibility and freedom to grow as a photographer. Even if you only plan to buy a single lens at first, choosing an interchangeable lens body will give you the option to grow your collection of lenses (aka “glass”) over time.
Additionally, good glass treated well, will likely outlive your camera body (several camera bodies, in fact), meaning you can buy the latest, greatest, newest body in the future without having to re-invest in new lenses, as long as you stay with the same vendor and system type (e.g. Nikon FX or Canon EF-S³). If you buy a camera with an integrated lens, when you outgrow it, you have to replace everything.
Sensor Size
One choice you have to make when buying your first camera is what size sensorwill my camera have? The size of the sensor is one of the primary factors in the cost of a digital camera, with smaller sensors generally costing less, but also having comparably lower image quality. A larger sensor typically give images that are sharper, have a greater dynamic range, and contain less noise. Larger sensors also tend to have better low light performance.
But… sensor technology has been advancing at a breakneck pace over the last decade, so a larger but older sensor will often be inferior to a newer small one.
Here are the names of common sensor sizes you’ll often see thrown around, in descending order of size:
Medium Format Sensor (e.g. 43.8 x 32.8mm, 53.4 x 40mm): Generally only found in very expensive, high-end professional cameras, these are the largest sensors you’ll find in mass-produced cameras. The name “medium format” comes from the film days, when 2¼ roll film was called “medium format” because it was larger than 35mm, but smaller than traditional plate cameras that used 4×5 or 8×10 sheets of film or glass. Medium format sensors are nearly (but in most cases, not quite) as large as a traditional 2¼ medium format film frame. Today, the name “medium format” is used to describe a handful of different size sensors that are larger than a traditional 35mm negative.
Full Frame (35mm x 24mm): The most common sensor size used in professional-grade digital cameras, this sensor is almost exactly the same size as a 35mm negative. Since the earliest professional digital cameras were built from 35mm SLRs, the traits of other sensors are often specified relative to this one.
APS-H (≈29mm by ≈19mm): A slightly smaller sensor used in a lot of “prosumer” and enthusiast DSLRs, there are several slightly different versions of this sensor with slightly different sizes. Sensors of this size (and the next size down: APS-C) are often referred to as “crop sensors” because many of the bodies with these types of sensors can use lenses designed for full frame cameras, but the sensors only capture a portion of the image from the lens, resulting in the image being cropped. APS-H has a crop factor, compared to full frame cameras, of 1.3.
APS-C (23.6mm by 15.8mm): A little bit smaller sensor used in many smaller consumer DSLRs, this sensor has a crop factor of 1.7.
Micro 4/3 (17.3mm by 13mm): About a quarter the size of a full frame sensor, this size sensor is used in many mirrorless cameras, especially smaller, consumer-targeted ones.
CX (13.2mm by 8mm): A sensor used primarily in higher-end point and shoot cameras.
Small Sensors: There are a whole bunch of even smaller sensors whose sizes are generally given as a fraction of one inch on the long edge. Some of the small sensor sizes you may see are: 1/1.7, 1/2.5, 1/2.3, 2/3, 1/3.2, 1/1.2, and 1/1.8. These small sensors are primarily used in consumer cameras, webcams, security cameras, and mobile phones.
Relative size of many common camera sensors.
While larger sensors are generally “better” than smaller sensors, going with a less-than-full-frame sensor is one of the best ways to keep your costs down when buying your first camera. Full frame cameras are mostly targeted at working professionals and very experienced hobbyists, so they tend to have the most cutting-edge features. As a result, they cost quite a lot, with very few current-generation full-frame camera bodies starting at under $2000.
When shooting under bright daylight, or with studio strobes, many of the benefits of a larger sensor are far less evident, and the cost savings from a camera with a smaller sensor can be significant. At the time I’m writing this, there are some very capable crop-sensor cameras available for under $500.
The reality is, modern camera sensors are amazing pieces of technology and they’re only going to keep getting better. You can great results with any modern sensor and the benefits of a full frame or medium format sensor more often than not will be lost on someone who is just getting started.
In most respects, once you’ve selected your camera body, you don’t really have to worry about the size of the sensor any more. There is, however, one thing you need to know about cameras with different sized sensors: the lens focal lengths are different, and often the length specified is “full frame equivalent”.
What that means, is the stated focal length isn’t necessarily the focal length for your camera. A 50mm lens on a full frame camera does not give the same field of view as a 50mm lens on an APS-H camera. The “full frame equivalent” focal length for a camera with an APS-H sensor is roughly 38mm. To calculate that, divide the full frame focal length by the crop factor of the sensor you’re converting to. APS-H has a crop factor of about 1.3, so if we divide 50 by 1.3, we get 38.46. Since focal lengths usually only come in whole number values, we round down to 38mm, and that tells us that a 38mm lens on an APS-H camera will have roughly the same field of view as a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera.
Must Have Features
When you start researching cameras, you might get a little overwhelmed by all the available models and features. Sometimes, two models from the same manufacturer will seem so similar, thatit’s hard to even understand why they both exist. There are a few absolute must-have features you should look for, though.
Adjustable ISO
ISO a measure of the camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the less light you’ll need to get a correctly-exposed picture, but the trade off is a lower quality final image. The term is a holdover from the film days, when different film stock had different sensitivity to light and you would pick your film based on the lighting situation you were planning to photograph. Nowadays, it’s rare for cameras not to have an adjustable ISO, though some consumer cameras and most phone cameras hide this setting away and adjust the ISO automatically by default. If you’re going to get seriously into photography, you need to be able to control the ISO, and it’s best if the controls to change ISO are easily accessible while shooting. You don’t want to miss the perfect shot because you had to take the camera away from your eye to adjust ISO.
Manual Mode
Many consumer-targeted cameras either don’t have a fully manual mode, or are designed in such a way that using full manual mode is difficult. You want to make sure that the camera you’re looking at has full manual mode, and that shutter speed and aperture are easy to change without taking your eye away from the viewfinder.
The three settings I’ve mentioned – aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, make up what photographers call the “exposure triangle”, because they are the three values that primarily affect whether your image is properly exposed. Being able to adjust all three of these settings without taking your eye away from the viewfinder will make your life so much easier when shooting.
I’ll talk about the exposure triangle in great detail in a future post.
Hot Shoe and/or PC Sync Socket
Many models of camera, regardless of style, will have a hot shoe, which is the little metal doohicky on the top of the camera body that you can use to attach an external flash. That hot shoe is also used to trigger studio strobes using wireless transmitters. As you start looking at more expensive “prosumer” and professional models, you’ll also start to see something called a PC sync socket somewhere on the camera body, which is used to trigger studio strobes with a hard wire. Most cameras with a PC sync socket will also have a hot shoe, though there are some high-end medium format cameras that have a PC sync socket, but no hot shoe.
Two ways of triggering external flashes and studio strobes: the hot shoe (left) and the PC sync socket (right)
Even if you think you only want to shoot with natural or existing light, getting a camera with at least one of these two items is a good idea, because you may reach a point where the limitations of natural light start to frustrate you. Fortunately, most prosumer and pro cameras have both, and even the majority of consumer cameras at least have a hot shoe.
Raw File Support
Internally, all digital cameras use a “raw” file format that represents the image data exactly as it was recorded by the sensor. Cameras are capable of converting that raw file format into a standard image format such as JPEG, and some cameras default to this behavior and hide the raw file from you. Most serious photographers keep and edit only the raw file, which functions sort of like a digital negative, giving you a lot more latitude to make adjustments to your image without losing image quality.
A Camera that Fits You
One “feature” that rarely gets talked about when purchasing a camera is a really important one: how the camera feels in your hand, and whether the controls on the camera make sense and are easy for you to use. If you get serious about photography, you will spend a lot of time holding your camera. If it doesn’t feel good to you or the control placement doesn’t feel natural, then it’s not a good camera for you, no matter how nice the specs are³.
In general, it’s not a good idea to buy a camera you haven’t had a chance to hold in your hand. There are times when you can break this rule–such as when moving to an upgraded version of the same camera you already have—but generally speaking, you don’t want to buy a camera unless you know it feels good in your hand, isn’t too light or heavy, and has controls that make sense for you.
Mechanism Type
Digital cameras these days come primarily in two different styles that use different internal mechanisms: DSLR and mirrorless.
DSLR
DSLR stands for digital single-lens reflex, and is a style of digital camera that evolved out of film-based SLR (single lens reflex) cameras. In all single-lens reflex cameras, the image is reflected up to the viewfinder using a mirror and a pentaprism, so when you look into the viewfinder, you’re seeing the actual image that will be recorded when you press the shutter button. Prior to the SLR, when you looked through the viewfinder of a camera, you were usually seeing an approximation of what would be recorded on film, not the actual image through the same lens.
When you press the shutter button to take a picture with a DSLR, the mirror that bounces the image up to the rangefinder very quickly moves out of the way to allow the image to pass through to the shutter and onto the sensor.
Until recently, nearly all professional and prosumer digital cameras were DSLRs. While the mirror-and-pentaprism combination was revolutionary in the days of film, today, they are largely an artifact of the past because digital cameras can pull the image directly from the sensor and display that in the viewfinder or camera screen with just a few wires. The mirror mechanism adds quite a bit of size and weight to the camera and adds a potential mechanical point of failure. It also limits the speed at which pictures can be taken. Even the highest-end professional DSLRs can’t exceed about 14 frames per second because of the time required to physically move the mirror out of the way and then back down.
Mirrorless
Several camera manufacturers started replacing the mirror and pentaprism mechanism in their cameras with a simpler system that pulls the image directly from the camera sensor and displays on an LED screen in the viewfinder,. By removing the large physical mirror mechanism that redirects the light away from the camera sensor, and the pentaprism that directs the image to your eye, mirrorless cameras can pack identical functionality into a smaller, lighter package that’s less prone to mechanical failure, or into a camera the same size that has much longer battery life.
The earliest commercial mirrorless cameras—such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1—used a micro 4/3 sensor and were primarily designed to compete with consumer DSLRs. It didn’t take long for the advantages of mirrorless to become obvious, however, and many more manufacturers started designing mirrorless cameras across all price and feature points. Eventually even Canon and Nikon—the two big dogs in the DSLR market—started releasing mirrorless bodies.
Digital Rangefinder
You may see the term “digital rangefinder” used for some types of cameras. A digital rangefinder is really just a mirrorless camera. Back in the days of film, a rangefinder was a type of camera where you looked through a device (also) called a rangefinder, which used one of a variety of mechanisms to approximate the view through the camera’s lens. The best-known brand of traditional rangefinder cameras is Leica.
While there have been a few digital cameras released that were true mechanical rangefinders, such as the Pixii A1112, the vast majority of so-called “digital rangefinders” produced today use a digital viewfinder that displays the image directly from the camera sensor. That means they are really just mirrorless cameras that have been styled to look like classic rangefinders.
Buying Used
One option to consider, if you’re interested in buying professional or prosumer gear, but just don’t have the budget for it, is buying a camera body used. I wouldn’t generally opt for buying a camera that’s more than four or five years old, but a lot of people do upgrade their equipment pretty regularly, and professional grade equipment is built to last, so if you can find someone who is unloading professional gear that’s just a few years old, you can often get a great deal. It’s better to buy local, as there are a lot of scams out there. Many camera shops will also have used gear for sale. It’ll usually be a bit more expensive than buying directly from a consumer, but will usually have been cleaned and may have some kind of warranty.
If you’re considering buying used, see if the seller will let you take a few pictures with it. If they won’t, that’s a red flag. Among the pictures you should take, is one that’s just of a clean white sheet of paper, which will allow you to see if there are any problems, such as dust on the sensor or dead pixels.
Choosing Between Mirrorless and DSLR
We are clearly in a period of transitions, and mirrorless is the future. That being said, the DSLR is far from dead. While mirrorless cameras have several clear advantages, DSLRs have been around longer and are far more mature systems with larger ecosystems. The current Canon and Nikon lens systems, for example, have been made for decades, because they evolved from the lens systems used in 35mm film SLR cameras. There are literally dozens (maybe hundreds) of different lenses (from multiple manufacturers) that can be used with these cameras. Sony’s e-mount system (probably the largest mirrorless ecosystem at the time of writing), has about two dozen lenses… if you count adapters and converters.
There are also a lot of photographers who already have large investments in their DSLR system. While there are adapters that allow you to use some DSLR lenses and accessories on some mirrorless cameras, they are imperfect, and often require you to give up certain advantages of moving to mirrorless, such as faster focusing. That means a lot of photographers have a disincentive to move to mirrorless.
Although this is starting to change, traditionally, the ergonomics and control layout on mirrorless cameras have been inferior to those on DSLRs, which kind of makes sense, since modern DSLRs are literally the result of over fifty years of design evolution⁴. Mirrorless cameras have been around about fifteen years, but took off less than a decade ago.
If you’re just starting today and are not already invested in any specific system, I would almost certainly steer you toward mirrorless systems, since they are clearly the future of photography. That being said, one of my two main cameras is a DLSR and probably will for quite some time. While I love my mirrorless body, I have more glass for my DSLR and the downsides of DSLRs are rarely an issue for me. I honestly like the heft and feel of a larger camera in my hand and, in fact, my mirrorless Z9 is actually bigger and heavier than than my D850 DSLR. With the battery pack on the DSLR, they’re nearly identical.
Conclusion
There is no one right answer to the question, “which camera should I buy”. All the major manufacturers (and several minor manufacturers) make capable cameras across a wide price and feature range. A camera purchase is a highly personal decision, so your best best is to try out the cameras you’re interested in before buying anything. That way, you can be sure it works for you. We’ve honestly reached a point where you can get great results with the majority of digital cameras on the market, including less-expensive consumer-targeted cameras, so you need to figure out what features are important to you and what your budget is, then let that guide your purchasing decision.
1- When shooting with the sun, consider shooting during the first or last hour of sunlight. Because the sun passes through so much more atmosphere, it is a softer, warmer light that’s generally more flattering than the harsh, direct sunlight you get in the middle of the day. Photographer’s refer to the first hour of sunlight after the sun rises and the last hour before it sets as the “golden hour”, because the light is so flattering.
2- Lenses designed for crop sensor and full-frame cameras often use the same mount and are, technically speaking, interchangeable, but generally, you want to stick with the correct lens type for your body to avoid missing part of the image or getting vignetting.
3- My father, my wife, and I all have cameras bodies with similar capabilities. My father shoots Canon, I shoot Nikon, and my wife shoots Sony. All three are great cameras, and the only significant difference between them is the layout of the controls and the shape of the body. Don’t worry about what camera other people use; find what works for you.
4- The earliest DSLRs were actually built using film SLR bodies.
The first time I was invited to show photographs, I was asked to bring mounted prints. I had learned how to cut mats and mount photos a few decades earlier, but I hadn’t done it in at least twenty-five years. I didn’t really remember how and didn’t have any of the equipment I needed to do it.
I kind of panicked over the whole situation and never mounted any of my images. I showed up, sheepishly, with a half-dozen images in a display portfolio. Nobody said anything, but I still felt really awkward, so decided to re-learn how to mount photos for display.
For those of you who might be experiencing that same panic, have no fear. It’s actually a pretty straightforward process, and I’ll walk you through it.
Terminology and Basics
Mounting a photograph is, at its core, a very simple operation. You start with two pieces of equal size mat board that are larger than the photograph you’re planning to mount. In one of them (the front mat or window mat) you cut a hole that’s the same size as your print (or sometimes a tiny bit smaller or larger, depending on the effect you want). Your photograph gets sandwiched between that front mat and the other piece of mat board (called the backer board or back mat) so that your photo is visible through the window you cut in the front mat. Once the front mat and backer board are attached to each other, your image is ready for framing or display.
Mounting a photograph serves a couple of functions. It protects your print, and provides blank space around it, which reduces visual noise and distraction for viewers. It also helps keep your photograph away from the glass when put in a frame. If your photograph touches the frame’s glass, over time it can get stuck and become damaged. The mat board provides enough space between glass and your photograph to prevent that.
The boards also provides some stiffness, so the image can be temporarily displayed even without a frame by leaning it against something, putting it in a display stand, or hanging it with wire.
Mat Board
Mat board is a rigid board traditionally made from one or more layers of very thick paper. Mat boards can be bought in 2-ply, 4-ply, and 8-ply¹ variants, with the number of “plys” representing the thickness of the board. The most common type of mat board is 4-ply. 2-ply mat board is sometimes used for economy mounting of images and 8-ply is sometimes used to give additional stability and a more luxurious feel, though not all mat cutters or frames can accommodate the thickness of 8-ply boards.
A selection of different color 36×40 mat boards and a 16×20 front mat with an 11×14 window cut out.
Mat Board Materials
There are two materials typically used in the production of mat boards: wood pulp and cotton fiber (sometimes also called cotton rag or just rag). What wood pulp and cotton have in common is that they contain a high percentage of cellulose, which is a natural polymer, and the thing that gives paper its structure. In fact, any organic material with a high cellulose content can be used to make paper and you can find boutique and eco-friendly manufacturers making boards from other materials such as bamboo, linen, and hemp. When talking about commercially available mat boards, though, they’re almost always made of wood pulp or cotton.
Cotton
Cotton is the more expensive of the two materials by a considerable margin. Being over 90% cellulose, it results in a board that is very durable and has a much nicer feel than boards made from wood pulp. It’s also naturally archival, rated at 300+ years, which is why it is used by museums for mounting or storing fragile, old, or valuable photos, lithographs, woodcuts, and paper documents.
If you’re selling prints above a certain price point, you should absolutely consider using a high quality cotton board. For many photographers, though, rag boards are a bit expensive for day-to-day use.
Wood Pulp
Boards made from wood pulp are considerably more economical than cotton. It’s important, however, to understand that wood is not, in its natural state, an archival product. Wood pulp usually runs between about 40% and 50% cellulose. In addition to the cellulose, it contains a number of other substances, including a different organic polymer called lignin. Lignin is essentially harmless… at first. Over time, unlike cellulose, lignin will start to break down. As it breaks down, it creates acid.
If you’ve ever seen an old newspaper that has yellowed, become brittle, and faded, you’ve seen the effects of the acid generated when lignin breaks down.
You do not want this acid anywhere near your photographs.
You should avoid using mat boards made from raw wood pulp. Unfortunately, manufacturers don’t always identify exactly how they make their boards, so you mostly have to identify them by the fact that they don’t mention any archival properties. If a board isn’t advertised as acid-free, lignin-free, pH neutral, or archival, you should assume the board is made of raw wood pulp and not use it for anything other than practice.
There are two processes that paper mills use to make boards from wood pulp that mitigate the problems caused by the naturally occurring lignin.
Buffering the wood pulp, which offsets the produced acids, rendering them harmless
Removing the lignin from the wood pulp so the acid is never generated at all
Buffered Wood Pulp
Buffering is the less expensive of these two options. It involves simply adding a chemical to the wood pulp designed to counteract the production of acids. These boards are usually advertised as pH-neutral and they are much better choice than raw wood pulp. They are not, however, considered to be archival.
While the buffering will prevent the acid from causing damage for a while, the buffering will eventually run out or lose effectiveness. How long it will take for the buffering to stop working will depend on the conditions: primarily the amount of heat, humidity, and exposure to direct sunlight there is. In challenging conditions, the buffering can lose its effectiveness in just a few years, so I generally wouldn’t recommend these for prints you’re going to sell, or for anything with high intrinsic or sentimental value.
Alpha Cellulose
The more expensive process involves actually removing the lignin from the pulp entirely so that the harmful acids are never produced. This is usually accomplished by separating out just the cellulose from the rest of the pulp and using that to make the paper. Boards of this type are typically advertised using one or more of the following terms: acid-free, lignin-free, archival, or 100% alpha cellulose².
While these boards are not as durable or sturdy as rag boards, they are considered archival, generally rated at 100-150 years or more, though that can vary by manufacturer. I consider alpha cellulose boards to be the default option for photographers selling prints for less than maybe $500.
The challenging thing when shopping for boards is that they do not have to be made from just one of the four options (unbuffered wood pulp, buffered wood pulp, alpha cellulose, or cotton). Many manufacturers will combine materials to create additional options. For example, some board manufacturers create boards with cotton outer layers, and alpha cellulose core layers. These boards are still archival, and still have the luxurious feel of a cotton board, but they can be produced less expensively than a 100% cotton board.
Similarly, you can also find inexpensive archival mat board sold as “backer board” that uses a less expensive, unbleached natural paper for its inner layers. As the name suggests, you should only use these boards for back mats, never for the front mat. While the outer layers may be acid- and lignin-free, the inner cores are definitely not acid-free, so cutting a backer board will expose your print to free acids. These boards also run the risk of exposing your print to acid if the mat gets torn, bent, or otherwise damaged.
Mat Board Terminology
There are some industry standard terms that you’ll encounter when shopping for mat boards. These terms aren’t regulated, so you can’t necessarily rely on them, but they are helpful to understand when shopping for boards.
Decorative Mats: This term is usually used to sell boards that don’t have archival properties. These boards will usually be made from buffered wood pulp, though you can also find boards sold under this term that are made from raw wood pulp.
Conservation Board: Used to identify boards that have archival properties, but are not 100% cotton. Typically, these are either 100% alpha cellulose, or a combination of alpha cellulose and cotton.
Museum Board: Used to describe archival boards made from 100% cotton.
Mat Board Colors
When we talk about the color of a mat board, we’re actually talking about three different colors: the front color, the back color, and the core color. Very often, all three colors are the same, but they don’t have to be. White front with a creme back is a very common type of mat board, as is black front with white or cream back.
You might be wondering what that third color is about.
Remember that mat boards come in versions with different numbers of layers? Well, when 4-ply and 8-ply mat boards are made, the manufacturer can choose to use a different color paper for the inner (or core) layers, and they often do. For example, you can buy white mat board with a black core, or black mat board with a white core.
The core color only comes into play for the front mat. When you cut a window out of your front mat, you won’t typically cut with a straight blade. Instead, you’ll use a special cutter that makes a bevel cut by holding the blade at an angle. This angled cut allows the core color to show through at the edges of the window. When the core color is different from the front color, the core color shows up as a thin outline around your artwork. This creates an effect that many people like.
Black mat board with a white core after cutting the front window mat.
What mat colors you choose is completely up to you. When framing an image to hang in a specific place, it’s not uncommon to select a colored mat that accentuates the image or its surrounding environment (or both). When in doubt, though, go with white for front and core (back color rarely matters). A white mat gets out of the way and lets your artwork be the star of the show. White mat board with a white core are also usually preferred–and are sometimes required–for showing in galleries or art shows or when submitting prints to a contest.
Foam Core Backer Boards
Sometimes, instead of using mat board for the backer board, some photographers will use foam core board instead of mat board. Foam core has two advantages over mat board. First, it’s much stiffer than even 8-ply mat board, so your final mounted photo will be a lot more sturdy. Second, foam core is inexpensive and readily available at any craft store. The main disadvantage of this kind of board is that the vast, vast majority of foam board—especially foam board purchased from craft stores or department stores—is not acid free and, therefore, not archival.
Foam core backer boards are generally best-suited to the temporary display of un-framed images—such as making a traveling exhibit or temporary display—since foam board is too thick for most frames.
Personally, I’m not a fan of foam core mounting outside of very limited situations, but it may be a good choice for some of your projects as long as you’re aware of its limitations.
Gathering Your Supplies
Before you get started, you’ll need to gather all the supplies and equipment you’ll need. Exactly what you need will depend on a couple of questions:
Do you plan to cut your own mats or buy pre-cut mats?
Do you want to create a flush mount or a hinge mount?
Pre-Cut vs. Cutting your Mats
If you’re printing your photographs only in standard sizes like 8×10, 11×14, 16×20, or 20×24 and are happy using black or white mats, you can buy pre-cut mats. You’ll pay a little bit more, but unless you mount a very large quantity of prints, the difference in price will be pretty minimal and you’ll save yourself the hassle of cutting the mat window and the expense of buying a mat cutter. You can even buy pre-made kits that contain pre-cut front mounts, backer boards, and crystal bags packaged together, which is an extremely convenient option if you’re looking to mount a lot of prints to sell.
If you print in non-standard sizes or aspect ratios, want to use non-standard mat colors, or want to experiment with fancy mounting techniques like double mats or french lines, then you’ll probably want to cut your own. Framing shops and some online suppliers will do custom mat cutting for you, but it tends to be considerably more expensive and it can take several days or longer to get your custom mats delivered.
Flush Mounting vs. Hinge Mounting
There are two main ways to assemble the front and back mat boards: flush mounting and hinge mounting.
With a flush mount, your front mat is attached to the backer board all the way around by some kind of adhesive. With care, a flush mount can be done in a way so the photograph itself is untouched by any kind of adhesive and can be removed from the mount without damage, but removing a print from a flush mount is almost certain to damage or destroy the mat boards.
With a hinge mount, the front mat and the backer board are connected along one edge using a piece of acid-free linen tape. The tape is used to create a hinge that connects the two boards while allowing the mount to be opened for easy removal of the photograph.
There’s no right or wrong choice here. Most galleries will accept either hinge or flush mounted images, and if you frame your image, you’ll never be able to tell which type of mount was used once it’s framed.
Generally, if you think the eventual owner of the picture is likely to want to remove the picture from the mount (for example, to frame it using a different color mat), then a hinge mount is the way to go. If you intend to display the mounted photograph without a frame, a flush mount is the definite winner because hinge mounts are more likely to come apart and are less stable when displayed freestanding. In pretty much every other case, it’s simply a matter of personal choice.
List of Needed Supplies
No matter which style of mounting you plan to use, you will need to a few things before you start.
Mat Board
For each print to be mounted, you’ll need:
Two Pieces of Mat Board: They should be the same size as each other and should be larger than the item that you’re mounting. If you’re mounting a standard size print, the general rule of thumb is use mat boards of the next standard size up. So, to mount an 8×10, you’ll want to get two pieces of 11×14 mat board. Some photographers prefer to use mat boards that are two sizes up from the print they’re mounting, which gives more white space around the image. In that case, you’d get two 16×20 boards to mount an 8×10 print or two 20×24 mat board to mount an 11×14). You can also experiment with larger and smaller mat boards to find what you like.
A Way to Affix your Photograph to the Backer Board
There are several options you can choose for attaching your print to the backer board, including:
Acid-Free Mounting Corners (like these): This is the approach I strongly recommend for most mounting projects. These mounting corners can be used to attach your photograph to the backer board without any adhesive touching the photograph. All of the other techniques below use some kind of adhesive to stick your photo directly to the backer board, which means there’s some chance of damage or destruction if you ever try to remove your photo from the mount. Mounting corners are inexpensive, archival, require no special hardware, and do not damage your print in any way. If you’re careful, you can even remove a print from the corner mounts and later put it back in. The only downside to corner mounts is if you print your images without a border, the mounting corners may intrude slightly into the mat window unless you cut the window a bit smaller than the actual print. Mounting corners may also not be a great option when mounting extraordinarily large prints.
Dry Mount Adhesive Tissue: This is the traditional way to attach a photograph to a backer board. This special tissue contains a heat activated adhesive that requires the use of a tacking iron or heat press. Typically, a tacking iron is used to lightly affix the print to the backer board, and a heat press is used to permanently attach it. Using adhesive tissue with a tacking iron is the next best option after mounting corners because the glue can be heated up and the print can usually be removed from the backer board with little to no damage. There might be some staining on the back of the print after it’s removed, but usually the front of the image will be completely unharmed if the removal is done carefully.
Two-sided Transfer Tape: Used with a special applicator, transfer tape is a strong adhesive that can affix your print to the backer board quickly and easily. Transfer tape is generally intended to be a permanent bond, so removing a print mounted this way can be very difficult and damaging the print is a strong possibility during removal.
Spray Mount: Spray mount is a spray adhesive specifically designed for mounting artwork. Removing photographs affixed with spray mount is not impossible, but it can be difficult, especially after a long period of time or if a lot of it was sprayed. The stuff also kind of just gets everywhere and makes everything in the general vicinity sticky, so it’s best to spray outside or under a vent hood. Even better, just choose another option.
A Way to Cut the Mat Window (optional)
If you’re going to cut your own mats, you’ll need a beveled mat cutter. You have two basic choices here.
A Handheld Mat Cutter: These are many types of special cutters and knives that can be used to create bevel cuts (such as this one or, if you want something less expensive, you could try this one). To use a handheld mat cutter, you’ll also need a self-healing cutting mat (like this one) and a ruler or, preferably, a T-square that’s large enough for the size mat boards you’ll be cutting.
A Full Size Mat Cutter: There are larger mat cutting devices like the Logan Simplex series, that make cutting mats faster than doing them by hand with a ruler and handheld cutter. These mat cutters are considerably more expensive than the handheld models, but they make it much easier to get consistently good results and they’re pretty much self contained – you won’t need a cutting mat or T-square to use them, and most will do both bevel and straight cuts. There are also heavier duty and even automated commercial options, but they’re not usually a good choice for hobbyists or even professionals working in relatively low volumes of prints because of how expensive they are.
NOTE: Most mat cutters are designed to handle 4-ply mat board and thinner. If you’re planning to use 8-ply mat board, make sure the mat cutter you buy is capable of cutting 8-ply boards. .
A Way to Affix the Front Mat to the Backer Board
How you connect the front and back mats depends on which type of mounting you’re doing. If you plan to flush mount your prints, you’ll need an adhesive to attach the front mat to the backer board. For this, I strongly recommend:
Two-sided Transfer Tape: Transfer tape comes in several widths. Generally, ½ inch works well for most mounting jobs. ¼ inch is a good choice when working with 8×10 or smaller mats, and if you’re planning to mount very large prints, you might want to look at larger widths.
Transfer Tape Applicator: Transfer tape isn’t a standard two-sided tape where you can just pull pieces off from a roll and stick them to something. It’s more of an industrial adhesive that comes on a roll, so using it requires a special applicator. You’ll need to get one if you want to use transfer tape, but IMO, it’s well worth the investment. I have two, one loaded with ¼” tape for smaller prints and one loaded with ½” tape for larger prints.
You could also choose to use one of the other types of adhesives mentioned earlier for mounting your print to the backer board, such as adhesive mounting tissue or spray mount, but the former requires additional equipment and the latter… well, it just gets everywhere. You can also use any glue or paste that’s acid-free, including glue sticks.
If you plan to hinge mount your photos, instead of two-sided transfer tape or adhesive, you’ll need to get:
Acid-free Linen Tape (sometimes called hinging tape or book binding tape): This special, archival (one-sided) tape will be used to create the hinge between your front mat and backing board. You can not substitute other types of tape (even if archival) for this purpose.
One brand of acid-free linen hinging tape
Extras
That’s basically everything you need, but here are a few other items that can make your life easier:
Gloves: It’s possible to mount a photo without ever touching the surface of the print, but it’s not easy, especially when mounting large, borderless prints. Wearing a pair of archival cotton gloves or unpowdered nitrile exam gloves at certain steps of the process can help avoid leaving inadvertent fingerprints or smudges.
Weight Bags: These handy little cloth-wrapped beanbag weights are designed specifically for mounting and framing. You can safely put them on your photo once you’ve positioned it on the back mat. The weight will hold your photo in the correct location while you attach it to the backer board and it won’t leave marks on your print if you keep it clean.
A Writing Utensil: Unless you have access to a very high-end automated mat cutter, you’re going to need to draw some guidelines on your mats to know where to cut the window and where to place the print. You also may want to sign your print or write edition marks on it (e.g. “1 of 25” to indicate that this is the first print made and that no more than 25 prints will ever be made). An old fashioned wooden pencil works best for marking your guidelines. I usually prefer a hard one—like a 2H—or a non-photo-blue pencil so the writing isn’t too dark, but nobody will ever see the guidelines once the mount is complete, so any pencil should be fine. For edition marks and signatures, a pencil is the traditional option because it makes it harder to counterfeit. I personally prefer using a pen, but if you go that route, make sure to use one that’s archival, such as the Sakura Pigma Micron pens so that you don’t risk damage to your mounted photographs.
Doing Your Window Calculations
The next step in mounting a photograph is to do some math to figure out where to cut the window in your front mat. Don’t worry, it’s not very hard math, but you do need to do some simple calculations to figure out where to cut.
The Simple Case – Centered Window
The easiest and most common way to mount photographs is to center the image in the mat. The math for this is relatively easy. You take the dimensions of the mat board you’re using and subtract the dimensions of the photograph you’re mounting and then divide the results by two. That will give you the size of the margins for cutting your front mat window.
For example, if we’re mounting an 11×14 photo using 16×20 mat boards and want the window the exact size of the print, we subtract 11 from 16 and divide by 2 to get the short side margin and subtract 14 from 20 and divide by 2 to get the long side margin, like so:
Mat Board
Photograph
Delta
Margin
Width
16
11
5
2.5
Height
20
14
6
3
Now, on the back side of the front mat board, use a T-square (or your mat cutter) to mark straight lines based on the calculated margins. In that last example, draw one line that’s 2.5 inches in from each side in the shorter direction, and one line that’s 3 inches in from each side in the longer direction. When done, your guides will look something like this:
The part of the mat between the four lines that you’ve drawn is the window that you need to cut out (colored in gray above).
Drawing guidelines on the back of the front mat.
Once you have your guides, place the board with the front side down and your drawn guides facing up on a cutting mat or your mat cutter. Cut the window by making four straight cuts with your mat cutter, each from one corner of the window to another corner.
Lining up the mat cutter and the guidelines.
You want to be careful not to let the board shift as you push down on the blade. As the blade makes contact with the mat board, it tends to force the blade a little to one side. Some mat cutters have a button you can press before starting your cut that will prevent the mat cutter from shifting. If yours doesn’t have that, you’ll need to hold your mat cutter very firmly as you press the blade down to ensure it doesn’t move from the starting location as it starts to penetrate the mat board.
The bevel cutter from a Logan Artist Elite mat cutter has a silver button that keeps the cutter in its current location while pushing the blade down into the mat board for cutting.
After you’ve made the fourth cut, you should be able to lift up the mat board and have the window just fall out.
After the fourth cut, the window should just drop out of your front mat.
If you flip the board over, you should see a nice bevel cut window that allows some of the board’s core color to show. This is your front mat, ready to be assembled.
The completed front mat.
Positioning Your Photograph
In order to position your photograph on the backer board, your best bet is to draw more guides. With the backer board, you’ll make your marks on the front of the board, rather than the back. I find the easiest and most reliable way to make guides for positioning the photograph on the backer board is to put the newly cut front mat on top of the back mat and align them. Once they’re aligned, take a pencil and mark each of the four corners of the window you cut. You’ll want to be careful not to get pencil on the bevel if you’re using a light color core.
Marking the back mat using the front mat
Alternatively, you can simply draw the same guidelines you did in the previous step.
Once you have guidelines, place the photograph on the backer board and position it using the guidelines you drew. Once you’ve got the print aligned with your markings, drop a weight bag onto the print to hold it in place.
Positioned image with a weight bag on it to hold it in place.
Before attaching the photograph to the backer board, put the front mat back on top and line it up with the backer board to make sure that the photo’s position is correct. If it’s not, make adjustments until it is, then remove the front mat again.
If you’re using mounting corners (and I highly recommend that you do), you can lift up each corner of the print, place a mounting corner on it, and then press it back down firmly to attach it to the back board. You may want to wear gloves during this step, especially when mounting larger prints, to avoid getting fingerprints or smudges on the print or mat board. If I use a glove, I typically only wear it on one hand because it’s hard to handle the mounting corners effectively wearing a glove.
Applying mounting corners to the print. Notice that my hand is resting on the weight bag, not on the print. This ensures the positioned print doesn’t move, yet stays free from smudges or palm prints.
If you use mounting tissue or transfer tape to attach your photo to the back mat, you can lift up one side at a time, lay down some adhesive, and place the photograph back down on top of it.
If you use spray mount, you’ll have to spray the entire back of the photo at one time, and then place it back on the backer board. With this option, you want to make sure that your guidelines are accurate before you start spraying. Praying might help, also.
The most important think to keep in mind during this step—regardless of how you’re attaching your print to the back board—is to make sure the photo doesn’t move. Even a small shift while affixing the photo could ruin the mount and print if you’re using a permanent adhesive. If you cut your window slightly smaller than your print, you have a little more wiggle-room to accommodate slight shifts.
Assembling the Mat
You’ve now got your front mat cut and your photo attached to the backer board. All that’s left is to assemble the mats. How you do that depends on whether you’re doing a flush mount or a hinge mount.
Assembling the Flush Mount
To assemble a flush mount, all you need to do is lay down some adhesive on one of the two mats. With transfer tape, I usually lay the adhesive down on the backer board, one strip the full length of each of the four sides. I don’t personally recommend spray mount or other adhesive options for assembling your mats, but any archival adhesive can be made to work. Transfer tape is nice because you have to actually apply pressure to make the adhesion permanent, so you can line up the mats perfectly before applying pressure and committing. With the other adhesive options, you’ll need to be very careful to line up the mats perfectly before letting the two sides touch each other.
Using a transfer tape applicator to adhere the front and back mat boards for a flush mount.
Assembling the Hinge Mount
The hinge mount is even simpler to assemble: just place the front mat upside down above the back mat and press them together so the top of the bottom mat is touching the bottom of the upside-down top mat.
Note:Because a hinge mount can be opened at any time, you may want to assemble a hinge mount before placing your photograph on the backer board. That’s not an option when flush mounting, but with hinge mounting, I find switching the order makes easier to position the print correctly.
Front and back mats lined up for a book hinge assembly. The hinging tape goes half on each board as marked in red.
Once they’re lined up, cut a piece of linen tape that’s the same length as the top edge of the mat or, perhaps, just a tiny bit shorter. Apply the hinging tape so that it’s half on each of the mats and press firmly down the entire length of the strip of tape. This piece of linen tape creates a connection between the mats called a book hinge. Make sure you use a tape designed specifically for this purpose. Hinging tape is extremely sticky, strong, and hard to remove once attached. Attempting to create a book hinge from a less aggressive type of tape, like masking tape, simply won’t work well.
Believe it or not, you’re now done. You can fold the top mat down onto the bottom like a book cover (hence, the name), and your mat is ready to go.
Conclusion
It’s taken a lot of words and quite a few pictures to describe a fairly simple and straightforward process, but once you’ve mounted a couple of prints, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll become comfortable with the process. There are, of course, far more advanced techniques you can experiment with if you want. Try searching the web for the term “French Matting” to find a lot of inspiration and ways to fancy up your mats by, for example, using more than one front mat with increasingly larger windows (double mat, triple mat,etc.), or by adding decorative borders—called french lines—which are drawn, painted, or even gilded borders around the window. There’s a very good web page containing information on advanced and historical matting and framing techniques on the Conservation Wiki right here, though it can often be quite technical.
For photography, the vast majority of images are mounted using a simple white or neutral-color mat with no additional decorations. Generally, the intention is to showcase the photograph, not to compete with it or overshadow it. But, the mat is part of the presentation, and if you’re so inclined, feel free to experiment with fancier mounting options. Just keep in mind if you’re ever going to display in galleries or at art shows, they will probably require your photographs to be mounted in a plain white mat with white core.
Ply is used as a measure of thickness these days rather than an indication of how the board was made. While some boards are still made from multiple sheets of paper, many are produced from a single thicker layer. A board made from a single layer, but created at the same thickness as a traditional 4-ply board, will still be labeled as 4-ply.
Alpha cellulose is the name of the specific type of cellulose found in wood.
This is the first of my Getting Started posts, designed to help aspiring nude photographers. In this series, I’ll cover a wide variety of topics, including choosing equipment, scouting locations, finding and working with models, using both studio lighting and natural light, post-processing images, and promoting yourself. But, before I do anything else, I want to talk about some ground rules for working with models, especially models you don’t know.
Most of what I’m going to say here will seem like a mix of common sense and common decency to many of you. Unfortunately, nearly every model I’ve ever worked with has told me at least one story about a photographer being inappropriate during a shoot. Because of that, I feel it’s important to talk about this before I help anybody get started.
In Their Shoes
Let’s try something. Spend a moment right now imagining how it might feel for a model who is shooting with you for the very first time. They’re probably at a studio or location of your choosing, and it might be a remote location. They’re naked, or wearing very little, and there’s a pretty good chance you’re physically larger and stronger than them. They have no reason to trust you yet and they have plenty of reasons to be wary.
If it’s a paid shoot, the money you’re going to pay them is part of their paycheck. They’ll use that money to pay their rent and put food on the table, so they might be hesitant to tell you when you’ve done something to make them uncomfortable for fear that you’ll get mad and refuse to pay.
Imagined it? Good. Now think back to that feeling any time you’re making decisions about what to do, what to say, or how to say it when working with a model. Sometimes a subtle change in phrasing can make a huge difference. The better you are at making a model feel comfortable, respected, safe, and valued, the more likely they’re going to be to want to work with you again and the better the photos you’re going to be able to get.
Tell Them Everything Important Up Front
It’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s still true that communication is the single most important factor in the success of any relationship, including the relationship between a photographer and a model. In the context of a shoot—especially a nude shoot—communication is extra important. It is almost always better to over-communicate than to under-communicate.
The fact that you’re expecting a model to pose nude should—of course—be discussed beforehand, but agreeing to a “nude shoot” really isn’t enough. There are a lot of different kinds of nude shoots and not all models are comfortable with every type. If you arrive at a shoot expecting to shoot images that are more on the erotic side, and the model arrives expecting to do a classic figure shoot or implied nudes, you’re going to end up wasting valuable shooting time figuring out how to re-work your concept.
And yes, in that situation, the burden is on you to adapt. Do not ever attempt to cajole, trick, or pressure a model into doing something they’ve said they’re not comfortable doing. If you failed to properly communicate what you want to do ahead of time, that’s on you, not the model.
Anything that you want to shoot that’s likely to make some people uncomfortable needs to be fully communicated to the model before you agree to shoot together. Whether it involves nudity, physical discomfort, sexual content, fetish-related material, kink, gore, or politically or ideologically sensitive concepts, you need to lay everything out on the table right up front so there are no surprises on the day of the shoot. Do everything you can to make absolutely sure your model is on board with what you want to do and stay flexible so you can adjust as needed if there’s a miscommunication.
Informed Consent is King
At some point, it’s very likely that you will need to break one or more of these rules to get an image you want. In fact, there are many types of photography that these rules would seem to make impossible. Rest assured, you can shoot most anything you want if you’re willing to have the hard and sometimes uncomfortable discussions needed to get fully informed consent ahead of time.
As long as you’re completely transparent about what you plan to do and the model is an adult and agrees to it, you can ignore any of the rules that follow. Just make sure you have fully communicated what you intend to do and keep in mind that consent can be retracted at any time.
Don’t Touch
I really can’t stress this point enough: do not touch the model if you haven’t discussed it in advance. Even an innocent touch from a stranger can be extremely uncomfortable for some people when they’re naked or near-naked. Casual touches that would barely be noticed in many other situations can come across as hostile, even if you don’t intend them that way.
Instead, use words and gestures to communicate what you want your model to do. If you need to, show them what you want by taking the pose yourself or showing them images of similar poses.
When the model initiates or suggests contact, then of course that’s fine. You don’t have to refuse a handshake or a hug or tell the model “no” if they ask you to help them with a piece of clothing or jewelry, but don’t ever presume it’s okay to touch them unless you’ve discussed it before the shoot or the model initiates or invites the contact.
Avoid Terms of Endearment
Most people use terms of endearment like “dear”, “honey”, or “sweetheart” only with people they already have a well-established and pretty close relationship with. There are people, however, who use these words more casually, even with people they’ve just met.
If you’re one of those people, try really hard not to do it during a shoot with a model you don’t know. Regardless of how you intend it, there’s a pretty good chance of it coming across as creepy and inappropriate.
Watch Your Language
Even if you’re a hobbyist photographer, you should approach every shoot as if it was your profession. Treat the studio or other shoot location like it’s your workplace and treat the model (and anyone else there, such as a makeup artist or stylist) the way you would a respected co-worker.
Of course, you need to use common sense. If, you’re doing a bondage themed shoot or some other kind of shoot with erotic content, there are going to be words you’ll need to use to communicate effectively that you wouldn’t use in a corporate setting. If a word is appropriate to the situation, use it. Just be sure that the word is appropriate, and always favor formal words over slang (especially with anatomical terms) unless you’re absolutely sure the model is comfortable with the slang term. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.
Ask About and Respect Boundaries
While some models are completely comfortable with any part of their body being photographed, quite a few are not. A great many models, for example, do not wish to be photographed in open-leg or other sexually suggestive poses and don’t wish to have their genitals photographed up-close. Make an effort to find out what the model’s boundaries are and then make sure to respect those boundaries. If you can’t get an image you want while respecting the model’s boundaries, find another model or change your concept.
Discovering boundaries can be challenging. People aren’t always comfortable talking about their bodies—especially with a stranger—and asking can sometimes make a model wary of your intentions if you don’t phrase the question carefully. Despite that, it’s worth the effort to find out, since that knowledge can help you avoid asking your model to do something they’re not okay with.
No Sneak Shots
I kind of can’t believe I even have to say this one, but I know from talking with models that I do, indeed, have to say this one. When a model is “offstage”… in other words, then they’re getting dressed, when they’re getting makeup done, when they’re relaxing or checking their phone on a break… do not take their picture without asking first and never, ever try to intentionally take a picture that goes beyond their stated boundaries.
Compliment Wisely
Letting your model know that you’re happy with what they’re doing is really important. It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on the technical aspects of photography and forgetting to engage with your model as you shoot. Communicating with your model is just as important as framing, composition, and lighting. In fact, I would argue that it’s more important, so try really hard to remember to talk with and compliment your model so they know what you want and also know that you’re happy with what they’re doing.
But… not all compliments are created equal. Generally, it’s best to focus on the things a model is doing that are making for good pictures and less on the things they can’t control, like the shape of their body.
Saying things along the lines of “hey, that’s a great pose”, or “oh, I really like what you just did there” is great. It communicates to the model that you like what they’re doing with very little chance of making them uncomfortable.
Telling them, in very general terms, that they look good can be great, too. However, telling a model that they’re “hot” or “sexy”, or that they have a “nice ass” or “great breasts” is really just not appropriate at most shoots. You might intend it as a compliment, and some models will take it as one, but many others will be uncomfortable with these types of compliments because it can feel like you’re hitting on them.
Never Insult
While compliments, used well, are a great tool, insults and non-constructive criticism are not. Don’t insult your model. Don’t make negative comments about their weight, their appearance, or their ability to pose, and don’t give them any criticism that they can’t act on.
Asking a model to change something to get a better shot is fine. Telling a model that something they are doing is “bad”, especially without telling them specifically how they can correct it, is useless. You’ll make the model feel terrible without improving your pictures in any way. In fact, you’ll probably end up with worse pictures.
There is almostnever a good reason to insult your model, and any criticism or negative feedback you must give them should be immediately actionable to improve the shot. Even if your critique is valid and is something the model can address, take a second to think about your phrasing. In terms of your model’s mood and motivation, there’s a world of difference between something like, “okay, that’s good, but could you try moving your hand a couple inches to your left” and something like, “Jesus, that looks terrible, umm… just… I dunno… move your hand over a bit.”
In that latter example, you might not be intending to direct your negativity at the model. You might be frustrated and thinking that what’s “terrible” is you, but the model can’t read your mind and is almost certainly going to interpret those kinds of negative comments as criticism of them.
Listen and Watch
Communication is a two-way street and an ongoing process. You need to make sure you’re listening to your model not just before the shoot, but during the shoot as well. If they tell you they’re uncomfortable with something, don’t just continue shooting. Put your camera down, listen, and talk with them to figure out what you can do to address their concerns.
Also keep in mind that, for a number of different reasons, a model may not actually tell you when you’re making them uncomfortable, so keep an eye out for signs of discomfort, concern, or anxiety. A furrowed brow, a concerned expression, or uncharacteristically stiff poses can all potentially be signs that something is going on that they are not telling you. If you notice something like that, stop shooting and ask if they’re okay. Give them a chance to take a break, reassure them that you’re happy with their work, and reiterate that you really do want to know if something is wrong.
Take Your Time
Photography is not a race. Modern cameras can take pictures at an astounding pace, with some high-end cameras able to take 10, 15, or even 24 full resolution shots every second. This fast pace is fantastic for sports photography and photojournalism, but it’s only rarely a true benefit when shooting models.
Unless you’re intentionally doing high speed captures, such as when working with a dancer or acrobat, it’s usually better to shoot at a slower pace and give the model time to move from one pose to the next. It can be disconcerting for a model to hear constant shutter clicks even when they are moving from pose to pose. Taking pictures at a fast pace also ends up creating a lot more work for yourself later when it’s time to sort through your library and find the good shots from your shoot.
Do What You’ve Promised
Make sure you follow through on anything you’ve agreed to do with regards to a shoot. If it’s a paid shoot, pay the model the amount you agreed to pay, and pay it immediately. Never try to re-negotiate a rate on the day of the shoot or after the shoot is over. If it’s a collaboration or TFP shoot, try hard to send edits in a timely manner and communicate to the model if you’re not able to for any reason. I know it can be hard. Edits take time and it’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed and behind, but not sending images from a TFP or Collab shoot is basically the same thing as not paying a model, so don’t do it.
Don’t Actually Hit On the Model
A number of the things I’ve talked about are designed to help you avoid inadvertently looking like you’re hitting on your model. I would hope it doesn’t need to be said, but don’t actually hit on a model during a shoot, either. The dynamics of the situation makes it inappropriate.
The Blacklist
Striving to treat another human being decently should be enough motivation for you to follow these guidelines or get informed consent in advance, but I’ll give you another very practical reason to follow the advice in this post: models talk to each other.
In this digital age, models who have never even met in person are able to easily and quickly communicate on social media and, believe me, they do. While some models will tell you when you’ve done something to make them uncomfortable, many won’t; they’ll just grit their teeth, get through the shoot, then add you to their list of people to never work with again. They may also tell other models not to work with you. It won’t take that many shoots to find yourself blacklisted and unable to reliably find models if you make people uncomfortable or behave inappropriately. If your behavior is particularly egregious, you’re likely to find yourself (justifiably) “named and shamed” on social media, which can have devastating consequences, both personal and professional.
Okay. Now that we’ve got that all out of the way, we can move on to the fun stuff starting with the next Getting Started post!
