Tara DiGiovanni, a New York City photographer, has worked with a variety of clients from Kenneth Cole to BCBG and Time Out New York magazine. Trained at the Parson’s School of Design, she’s had the opportunity to do all kinds of freelance photography, from product shots to portraiture.

John Brougher: Tara, you produce some fantastic pictures. When did you decide that photography was what you wanted to do professionally? Continue Reading

This week’s photo is by Dennis Good.
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

My father’s a photographer (hence my name) and I spent most of my childhood going along to shoots, standing in so he could test skin tone, and generally watching him work. As I got older I played assistant if he was ever caught out without one. Because of that I’ve always loved photography, and working with photographers was always one of my favourite things about being a graphic designer. Here are some links for all you amateur and professional photographers out there – and for people (like me) who just love looking at beautiful work…

Gizmodo wrote about an amazing new invention designed to thwart paparazzi shots – a spray that makes faces unphotographable. The guys over at The Superficial must be quaking in their boots

If you’d like to know how to do HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography, then check out this HDR tutorial roundup over at TutorialBlog.org.

I think the whole world has seen this by now, but in case you haven’t, rush over to Nick Brandt’s portfolio. These photos are just so unbelievably gorgeous – I have no words. Turns out he studied painting originally and you can really see that influence in his photos.

Do you love your coffee? Check out these amazing shots of coffee meeting milk. They’re extraordinarily beautiful.

Digital Photography School has a very handy guide to making your own inexpensive light tent. This is great for aspiring photographers on a budget, or early-days freelancers who need to photograph their work but can’t afford a professional… yet!

EpicEdits did a really interesting experiment – he asked 28 photographers to edit one photo using post-processing and cropping. The results are far more different than one would expect, and serve as a reminder for photographers and designers that there are many ways to interpret a photograph.

Photopreneur tells us how to earn $1000 an hour as a photographer. This one really surprised me!

Also from the Digital Photography School is a great guide to taking better candid photographs.

Finally, Crestock ran a photography competition with the theme Speed Demon and profiled the highlights. Some amazing work there!

This Weeks Photo:
This week’s photo is by Dennis Good, a graphic designer from Indianapolis who loves the world of photography. He works full time as a web designer, but stays busy with photography and print design outside of work. He books weddings, family portraits, and baby photos on the weekends and also specialize in logo design and corporate identity.

Got a good tip for a Linkswitch? Let us know here.
Do you want to submit a photo for profile on an upcoming Linkswitch? Then you can submit it here!

Interviewed by Robert Janelle

Tuan Nguyen

Getting an education is expensive. Tuition fees keep rising while government loans rack up interest along with limited time to work due to classes and assignments.

Tuan Nguyen, a 24-year-old senior studying photography at Savannah College of Art and Design, found freedom by shooting freelance.

Involved in arts since childhood, Nguyen started off painting but eventually became tired of the medium and moved onto photography.

After posting his availability on his school’s job board (possibly the most underused job search tool by freelancers) some work started coming in, including a gig shooting the cover and fashion spread for Key West Magazine.

Along with fashion photography, Nguyen does a variety of other work, including art projects, photographing 10,000 year old relics for an antiques dealer and helping aspiring models build their portfolios (along with his own.)

In the following e-mail conversation, Nguyen and I discuss word-of-mouth advertising, portfolio building and fair bit of photo-geek talk.
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Image from iStockPhoto

I always felt if the world was organised properly I’d be besieged by people asking me to shoot great photographic jobs because of course it’s obvious I’m a cool dude, a knockout creative professional as well as an all round wonderful person – so what is there to worry about? The work should roll in!

Unfortunately for some unknown reason the personal charisma strategy proved to be a total dud in generating work. Clients of little faith or vision have this curious notion I should present a portfolio of some relevance to the job at hand before they will even consider coming across with anything for me to point a camera at.

So, over the years I’ve spent a lot of time pondering what I should include in these portfolios and what I should exclude and how I should structure the flow of images so that clients are inspired and convinced that I’m the guy for the job. The hardest thing of all is getting free of how you think it should work and getting to where you have a handle on how it actually works.

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