Thomas Hawk has started what he calls his $2 Portrait Project, where he gives $2 to any panhandler who asks and in exchange takes a photo of them.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I don’t believe in giving money to panhandlers, after many encounters in San Francisco with aggressive panhandlers I believe giving them money just exacerbates the problem. Often it’s also just helping them support a drug or alcohol problem (and before some of you say that’s not the case try offering them food instead of money and they will often turn you down).

But I’ve also had the experience where I wanted to take photos of people on the street (especially down at Venice Beach) and they wouldn’t let you take their photo unless you gave them money. So what’s a street photographer to do? Is it exploiting the homeless to offer them money to take their photo? Would it better just to move on and find a willing subject that doesn’t mind having their photo taken?

Giving money in exchange for a photo also takes away one of the elements of street photography that I struggle with, asking strangers if I can take a photo of them. Should I take the easy route and pay my subjects or should I work through my fear and conquer it by continuing to struggle dealing with strangers? I’m going to learn a lot more from the latter.

I am constantly trying to improve my photography skills and am often reading 2 or 3 different books at any one time. Here are the latest I’ve been reading.

Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, Paul Fuqua

This is a great book and has taught me so much about how to use my flash in a studio environment. It sometimes gets a little deep so I tend to read it in short sessions, maybe read a chapter, go try out the concepts then come back and re-read the chapter before moving on to the next.

Here are some of the photos I’ve taken using the techniques outlined in the book.
 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers
by Scott Kelby

I had been using Lightroom for a couple of months prior to getting this book and thought I knew my way around the program. The first chapter proved that wrong. The number of shortcuts and tips in the first couple chapters completely justified the purchase of the book. I am now so much more efficient with Lightroom and these tips have significantly sped up my workflow.

Although I’m not a big fan of Scott Kelby’s humorous writing style I still highly recommend this book!

I have had a lot of requests for purchase of the Flash Gel Holders so I constructed a batch this week and am now offering them for sale for $9.95 each + shipping.