Category: Photography Blog

YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE YOUR PHOTO MIGHT SHOW UP

The Chicane is an on-line blog that features what they consider the best automotive images. Surprisingly, one of my photos was featured on their blogscroll in May, and I just came across it. I guess they found it on Tumblr where photo credits are rare. Uncredited here, when you drag and drop it, buried in the jpeg metadata is my 2013 copyright notice. No worries…

INSTA REPEAT

Here’s an image I made in the late ’80s. It was extensively published in print and has been copied since by other photographers many times. With the advent of social media, this phenomenon is in hyperdrive. Shooting for the approval of others (i.e. chasing likes or followers) is just plain dumb. It’s almost as bad as photographing for unsustainably low pay. How bad are things? Just check this out:

INSTA REPEAT

A LEGENDARY SEATTLE PHOTOGRAPHER HAS PASSED AWAY

Bob Peterson was well-known in Seattle for his amazing photography. His pioneering work was featured in magazines, ads and brochures for such clients as LIFE, AAA, Nike, the Seattle Super Sonics, and many more. He was also an iconic photographer for annual reports in the area, just like Harald Sund and the late John Terence Turner. These guys did this stuff on demand with one chance only – on film. We will all miss his approachable nature and wry sense of humor. Continue reading “”

STAYING HUMBLE

At some stage in your career, hopefully early on, you decide it’s important to stay humble, no matter what level of success you achieve.

The passion you feel along the way can have a way of making everything you experience a bit larger than life, obscuring the overall relevant importance of what you are doing.

Sure, some ego is important for the artist to survive, as is drive, tenacity and grit, which are all necessary to succeed, but those won’t determine what you leave behind that actually matters. Continue reading “”

EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT
DON’T ASSUME ANYTHING

Perhaps I could be a life coach. If only I wasn’t so busy. Oh, that brings up another oft-quoted piece of advice, “Be careful what you wish for.”

It’s not enough to memorize this stuff. You have to incorporate it into your daily practice, and anyone who has lived a life of self-awareness knows this to be true.

Maybe I could fulfill this role with a really young person or someone who is not quite sure they know it all. Continue reading “”

SELLING YOUR CAR

There’s a preconception that it’s too expensive to hire someone like ourselves to create professional photos and video for your on-line car auction. The reality is there are several layers of pricing and content available from Wells Imagery.

Your car has always had the best chance of selling for top dollar if it is photographed in a certain way. To meet this goal, we have perfected that approach and provided clients with complete feature photo shoots for over 250 cars.

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MY HOME WEBSITE

What you are looking at is not my main website. This is my blog.

Fun, sometimes serious, it’s a weekly journal that I do more for my sanity than anything else, but I’m happy if you find joy in it.

Some visitors to this blog are unaware of my main site where you can find thousands of images. Every so often I change the home page image there. I’m especially pleased with the current photo I made of reflections in a window at a So Cal air-cooled Porsche gathering. It changes regularly. Enjoy.

WELLS IMAGERY

WE REACHED 3,000 FOLLOWERS ON INSTAGRAM

“What?” you ask. “Only 3,000 followers? Don’t you think you should have more than that after posting regularly on Instagram for three years? Especially after you won a national award for your efforts?”

Well, Andrea and I don’t believe in buying followers. If we bought them we could easily have 10X this amount. However, they would not be real followers. The number of likes we’d receive per post on IG wouldn’t change all that much after all the money spent.

@cars.randywells

What we do have is a great appreciation for the authenticity and loyalty of those who do follow us. You are the ones who view our curated site on a consistent basis. We are proud to say that over 1/3 of our followers regularly like our stuff. That’s huge! We have even received over 60,000 views and 5,000 likes on a few of our single posts, because others have graciously hubbed that image on their IG sites. Thank you to everyone for your support! Continue reading “”

THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS, IT’S ALL ONE STORY

Everything worth doing takes time. Commitment and intention are everything. Otherwise, projects end up half-baked, or worse yet, contain inaccurate information when they were thought to be “finished”.

Our title says it all. Remember the big picture. “You’re only as good as your last job” is something else to keep in mind, no matter how far up the tree you climb. Another is, “The higher you climb, the harder the wind blows.”

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Drone image of North Cascades landscape at sunrise, Washington by Randy Wells

LOOK UP, THE SKY IS OPEN.

Drone photography and videography can be magical.

However, it is not for the faint of heart. The deeper you go into this discipline-laden aerial specialty, the more you risk being confronted with the limits of what is possible. Those limits are not very forgiving.

Still, for me, the effort is worth the risk for the imagery that can only be acquired aloft. It’s an inspiring and addictive vocation. Fly safely.

For more, see Randy’s Landscape Instagram page: @landscapes.randywells

THERE ARE NO RULES #5

OK, here’s the last in my arbitrary list of 5 traditional photographic rules meant to broken on the 21st day of the 12th month of the 21st year of the 21st century:

“Don’t Place The Horizon In The Middle Of The Frame”.

Another version of this is, “Never put your subject in the middle of the frame”. That’s another compositional rule to break, unless you’re shooting for a full-bleed double page spread!

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THERE ARE NO RULES #4

The following photographic advice is often recommended: “Never shoot at noon on a sunny day.”

You actually can do this.

However, here’s a tip. It’s easier to do if it’s late fall, winter, or early spring. And you need to aim the camera up. Include that beautiful blue sky in your image.