Industry: Education

Photography Business Institute celebrates 10 students from the Certified Boutique Photographer program during its Spring Immersion event

Springfield, IL (PRUnderground) May 16th, 2024

On May 8, 2024, the Photography Business Institute awarded the Certified Boutique Photographer (CBP) distinction to 10 students from its esteemed CBP Program. The ceremony occurred in Springfield, IL, coinciding with the Spring Immersion event hosted by the photography business school for its Peak Performance Coaching students.

The CBP program is a rigorous certification process designed to recognize professional photographers who excel not only in the craft of photography but also in business practices, client experience, and marketing. Unlike other certifications, CBP sets photographers apart with instruction on a unique marketing strategy for students’ photography businesses. The program emphasizes the importance of providing a superior client experience and investing in professional growth.

This marks the second cohort of Certified Boutique Photographers, following the inaugural class in the Fall of 2023, which saw 12 photographers earn the distinction. The Spring 2024 ceremony celebrates the achievements of 10 photographers who have demonstrated exceptional dedication, skill, and expertise in the field of boutique portrait photography.

The graduation ceremony was attended by over 100 photographers in person, with an additional 75 participating virtually as part of the Spring Immersion event. Highlighting the school’s dedication to continual professional improvement, Spring Immersion is a professional development conference for boutique photographers, where industry leaders come together to enhance their business skills and elevate their client service to the highest level.

“We are thrilled to award our second photography business class of Certified Boutique Photographers,” said Sarah Petty, Founder of Photography Business Institute. “These talented individuals have demonstrated their commitment to excellence and dedication to providing an exceptional client experience. We are confident that they will continue to thrive and make a significant impact on their communities and in the lives of their clients.”

The graduates of the CBP program have undergone extensive training, testing, and evaluation to achieve certification, making them among the best boutique portrait photographers in the world. Their success reflects not only their passion for photography but also their professionalism and commitment to continuous improvement. For more information about Photography Business Institute and its Certified Boutique Photographer Program, please visit www.PhotographyBusinessInstitute.com.

About Photography Business Institute

Photography Business Institute aims to educate photographers about how to have a viable, self-sustaining career as a professional portrait photographer and to make lasting contributions to the legacies of the families they photograph and the communities in which they reside.

As art fairs go, this year’s Photo London is an entertaining romp. Featuring 120 exhibitors from nearly 50 cities, it promises delights at every turn, from huge names like Steven Meisel, Martin Parr, and Lee Miller to the next generation of creators. Take for example artists spotlighted by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, which places its emphasis on particularly timely topics. These include Marvel Harris’s ongoing series Inner Journey, which documents his gender transition, Anastasia Samoylova’s subtle studies of impending climate doom in Miami, and Philip Montgomery’s visions of American life racked by inner turmoil.

Among several strong solo presentations of women photographers, the standouts are charming portraits of New York street life by Helen Levitt at Cologne’s Zander Galerie and the strikingly monochromatic landscapes, interiors, and still lifes of Yildiz Moran, a Turkish photographer who deserves greater recognition, presented by Galeri Nev from Ankara. This year’s Master of Photography, Valérie Belin, is honored by a small retrospective that also features entirely new, unseen work.

Yildiz Moran, Untitled Svetlana Beriosova and Svetlana Kessessinova (1952). Photo courtesy of Galeri Nev.

For those hoping to determine what new directions the medium might be taking, the fair is littered with pieces that show how photography keeps evolving as it feeds into and emerges out of all manner of artistic practices. On show are textiles, sculptural pieces, and paintings, alongside an increasingly prominent yet still controversial presence: A.I. Here are some of the most interesting examples on show.

Roope Rainisto

Installation view of Roope Rainisto’s Vacations at Photo London 2024. Photo courtesy of Verse Works.

Finnish artist Roope Rainisto has become a prominent name on the Web3 scene for his experimental projects using A.I. He will likely be unknown to many attendees of Photo London, who will encounter his latest series, Vacation, presented by the NFT platform Verse Works in an immersive holiday-inspired setting. Almost like ads, the works contain hyperreal images of classic vacation scenes that are imbued with heightened luxury and beauty. At a passing glance nothing is amiss but, on closer inspection, limbs suddenly appear out of nowhere, a diner stool has too many legs, or a plane is strangely distorted.

Is there always such a chasm between our want or expectation and the eventual reality? “Dream” holidays represent a utopian ideal into which we can escape, if only for a week or two. Their innate impossibility and the disappointments that follow lay bear the hollow superficiality of our aspirations.

“That’s really the perfect theme for A.I., to visualize these fantasies,” said Rainisto at the show’s installation. “The photographic style gives people the impression that it’s reality. I want to play with that [assumption].”

He noted also that, unlike on a small digital screen, the physical prints can be blown up to show off the works’ impressively high resolution. “You can actually see small skin details, so you really get the extra impact of the size.”

Sander Coers

Sander Coers, POST n. 28, left, and POST n. 48, right (2024). Photos courtesy of Open Doors Gallery.

At some point, our recollection of a trip will become almost entirely informed by faded old photographs. The eerily false impression this inevitably creates is at the heart of Dutch artist Sander Coers’s series POST, from which several new works are on view at Open Doors Gallery. Small-scale, fragmented, and grainy, his images evoke a nostalgic longing that is hard to place. A man wades through a field of flowers that reach up to his waist amid alpine scenery. A well groomed 1950s-style couple stare out to sea. If these images aren’t real then what are the tell-tale signs?

That A.I.-generated images are plainly fake yet still manage to evoke something close to truth underscores the futility of looking to any one image for an objective or faithful representation. Rather, our vision of the past always takes on a cinematic quality, regardless of the medium.

Jamie Gallagher  

Jamie Gallagher, Headsculpt (7) (2024). Photo courtesy of Notton Gallery.

At Notton Gallery in the fair’s Discovery section, artist Jamie Gallagher has taken a different approach, training A.I. on his previous paintings in order to create images that reinterpret his style in new and unexpected ways. The alien-like beings that result have taken on a life of their own, much as any creative act is inevitably born out of what came before.

Photo London 2024 is at Somerset House in London through May 19. 

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

Fourteen months ago, a catastrophic flood upended thousands of lives in Pájaro, a small Central California farmworker town filled with immigrants who speak mostly Spanish or Indigenous languages. A relentless series of atmospheric rivers transformed the inviting Pájaro River into a malevolent foe that charged through a crumbling levee and engulfed the coastal community in floodwaters. 

Regional and state officials knew a levee break was inevitable—it had failed at least four times before—but didn’t prioritize desperately needed repairs for a town populated by low-income farmworkers. The flood destroyed hundreds of structures, leaving families homeless, unemployed and traumatized. 

Construction crews will finally start reinforcing the levee this summer, but the project will take years to complete. And a flood is just one of many potential climate disasters threatening Pájaro and the agricultural industry the community depends on to survive. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record, setting the stage for more frequent and severe extreme weather events, heavier rains and longer lasting droughts, heat waves and wildfires that fill the air with toxic smoke. 

A group of Pájaro residents explored the impacts of climate change on their town through a very personal lens as part of the Pájaro PhotoVoice Project, organized by the nonprofit climate justice organization Regeneración. The photos will be on display at Somos Watsonville, a nonprofit community center, until June 7. 

Elisa H., a resident of Pájaro and mother, is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Elisa, who asked not to use her last name, speaks Zapotec and Spanish and is learning English at Cabrillo College. Elisa works in a packaging company making boxes and harvests strawberries during the growing season.

“This was when the rains started falling in Pájaro, before the levee break, and I was working in the fields. I was feeling so anxious when I took this photo because I knew that the rains would ruin the strawberries. And if there’s no strawberries there wouldn’t be work and so I was feeling really anxious.”

Ricardo Paz-Hernandez, 17, is a Pájaro resident and 11th grade student at Watsonville High School, where he is a member of the Mosaic art academy. He enjoys playing video games and participating in football, track and field and other sports. Ricardo hopes to find innovative ways for his community to thrive.

“The story starts with the tree. The tree had fallen and the school that was there is still being renovated after all the damage from the flood. It’s been a year and it’s still closed. And all the students that live here in Pájaro have to go across town to Lakeview in Watsonville. And so it starts with that image of being abandoned, forgotten. And then with a photo of the strawberry later, it’s like, you know what, we’re hurt, we’re left behind, but we’re gonna keep fighting. And then in the end with a bird with a tree, it’s like liberty, it’s like being released, being free and working hard to persevere.” 

“Originally, I didn’t really have a vision of what I wanted to capture. I just set out with the mission of walking outside my house, going back on the train tracks, because behind my house, there’s some train tracks. And I want to just take pictures and see where that led me. And I ended up taking the strawberry photo. I was done taking photos for the day and started walking back, and I saw the strawberry on the ground. And thought that’s something I want to capture. Then one of my peers in the project pointed out the leaves on the trees, in the back. And she brought up the idea of perseverance after going through such hard times with the floods and struggles. And so I took this image of being left behind, and turned it into something about persevering after such struggles with the picture of a bird with the tree.” 

Alejandra Vargas is a Pájaro resident and entrepreneur. Alejandra runs a small gourmet food business and a printing business and attends the Pájaro resident meetings at Casa de la Cultura, a nonprofit community center that supports farmworkers.

José Lomeli Flores, 17, is a Pájaro resident and 11th grade student at Watsonville High School. José is part of his school’s ECHO (Education, Communication, Humanitarian Outreach)  leadership academy.

“When I took a picture of la chancla I thought of every single mom, including my mom. She’s been taking care of us three boys by herself since I was in second grade. La chancla, a sandal, is a stereotype that Latin moms threaten misbehaving kids with a sandal to control them. When I saw la chancla, I thought of all the single moms that keep us safe here in Pájaro.” 

“I call this Flashback. I was hanging out with my friend talking about life, about what’s going on in our lives, and I was thinking back to the flood. I was also walking with my friend when the flood hit. When we saw the clouds coming in last month, it was almost exactly like it was when the flood came. Back then, we thought, the flood’s not gonna hit us. But since they didn’t fix the levee, and they knew the levee was damaged and didn’t do anything to stop it, it flooded. They left us behind. Each time I see a storm coming it reminds me of waking up in the middle of the night, hearing sirens, the cops saying, “Get out of the house! It’s an emergency.” My friend still lives in Castroville with his mom because his landlord didn’t want to fix his house.” 

“I called this Pájaro, are you concerned? Walking around the rural areas of Pájaro, it makes me worried for the people who don’t have easy transportation. Because as we can see here, this “sidewalk” offers no protection. I have to walk every day to be able to get my education. I also have to walk to get around town to go grocery shopping. It doesn’t always feel safe. And I can’t carry many things back home because I don’t have a car and there’s no bus route. How are the people who live here without a proper sidewalk supposed to safely get around? And it’s getting worse with climate change. Just imagine all the dangers it’s putting us in if we don’t do anything to stop this. If we don’t keep the earth safe, we’re not keeping ourselves safe.” 

Angelina Gonzalez is a Pájaro resident and mother who recently started working as a home caregiver, after years of working in the fields. Angelina is also a Community Climate Coalition member working on the Transformative Climate Communities Planning grant from the state of California. Angelina joined the PhotoVoice project because she wants to represent the feelings of Pájaro residents after the flood. She also wanted to capture how climate change affects her daily life.

“This picture reminds me a lot of what it was like after the flood. As a mother I had to find a way to protect my daughters, be able to find food for them, clothes for them, because we weren’t able to take anything when the flood came. And so the same thing with this man. He’s doing his work finding a way to protect himself from the sun because it was a very hot day. Workers wear hats but it’s not enough to protect your body. This box protects your whole body. And it’s not like they’re just bending over and then walking. They’re bending over, picking and then running because they get paid by how much they pick.”

The city of Roquebrune Cap-Martin provided the backdrop for the first underwater photography contest “Blue Trophy,” held on Sunday, May 12th.

Mayor Patrick Cesari, accompanied by numerous elected representatives, expressed his gratitude to the event organizers: the CoDep 06 of the FFESSM, the Department of Maritime Alps, the Télémaque diving club, and all the participants.

During his address, he emphasized the importance of protecting marine environments, discussing the possibility of establishing a marine protected area and organizing a maritime brigade in the coming summer to strengthen the safeguarding of the seabeds at Cap Martin.

The photographs presented during the contest showcased the beauty of the underwater landscapes in the area. The winners of this inaugural edition were announced as follows:

• 1st prize: David Roger and Jean François Guidi • 2nd prize: Benjamin Raffin and Laetitia Gauthier • 3rd prize: Christian Gelpi and Christine Leherquier • Municipality Prize: Shannon Tissot and Thierry Fouihac • Lightning Strike Prize: Benjamin Raffin and Laetitia Gauthier

The ceremony concluded with a reception to celebrate the efforts and successes of all participants.

Undoubtedly, this first edition marks the beginning of a series of initiatives aimed at promoting the beauty and conservation of the marine environment in the region.

Visit Our Instagram Page

Read More Articles

We spoke to the photographer about his latest zine BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Vol 2 which brings together the most memorable images from his archive of intimate nudes

Ali Tahayori: Archival Longing, 2024

Archive of Longing searches for moments of vulnerability, love and belonging within an inherited family archive, glimpses that often escape the photographer’s gaze and the subject’s agenda. The family photographs are cropped, enlarged, digitally altered and then printed on glass sheets. The printed glass is broken and reassembled to create 3D sculptural reliefs from 2D vintage photographs. The personal becomes the universal, as information is removed from photos through abstraction, fragmentation and distortion provided by raised broken printed glass

Photograph: Roya Khadjavi Projects/ Nemazee Fine Art

Birding with a medium format camera? Well, yes. Fujifilm wants you to believe that it’s possible. Even I was a bit excited yet skeptical. But the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 is indeed a real lens. The company, which has never had the best autofocus system, believes that medium format photographers and others will really enjoy this lens and all that it can do. As I was testing this lens, several questions were in my mind. Can I really make better pictures with this thing than I can with several 35mm full-frame lenses? Will it be able to keep up with small, erratically-moving birds in the foliage? And is it something that I’d want to carry around for a while? Let me tell you: I haven’t been this surprised at a lens since the Fujifilm 50mm f1. And more importantly, the hype is justified this time around.

Editor’s Note: Some of this review was done with a pre-production version of the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6. A full production unit will be coming later on and we will complete the review then.

The Big Picture: Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Review Conclusions

We’re going to save this section for our final conclusions and review. It will be updated accordingly. But in the mean time, you can check it out on Amazon.

Pros

• Very lightweight for what it is
• Weather resistance
• Sharp, but also at times, soft image quality
• Wonderful color rendition
• The bokeh makes images look like a dream

Cons

• Autofocus speed is what I expect from a lens made for a DSLR. In fact, those were faster at times.

Innovations

This is the longest telephoto lens for digital mirrorless medium format cameras. Period. That’s it, at least as of the publishing of this review. It’s also very lightweight, weather resistant, and balances the line between sharp and character. They did a very good job here.

Gear Used

We tested the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 with the Fujifilm GFX100s running the latest firmware. Our initial tests were done with a pre-production lens loaned to us by Fujifilm. The camera was loaned to us by a dear friend and super fan of the website whom we adore like a bokeh fanboy.

Hardware

When I got the Fujifilm 500mm f5.6 in for review, something felt odd. I immediately wondered if it’s a Sigma lens of the same make. Yes, we know that’s a full-frame 35mm lens. But to get their image quality, Sigma often makes the optics larger than full-frame to cover medium format. As it is, the dimensions are pretty much the Sigma 500mm f5.6. Even the front filter thread is the same 95mm.

Could Fujifilm have really just licensed the lens from Sigma the way that other brands tend to do? Olympus (or OM System) and Leica both have done this in the past, but put their own spins on everything else but the optics.

On a call with our Fujifilm reps, who we have reasons to believe, they stated that it’s an original OEM lens. Typically, in this industry, a manufacturer will say something instead like “It was developed by Insert The Name of Their Company Here.”

But in this case, I got a straight-up, “Nope.” Later on, and without my asking, my rep confirmed that the two lenses have different optical formulas, designs, number of elements, etc.

I have reasons to believe our reps, and generally folks at Fujifilm have some of our highest trust of any manufacturer. But it still oddly feels like a lens that would be made for full-frame cameras. Why is it so incredibly similar? For decades, Fujifilm was the OEM glass maker for other brands. These days, it tends to be Tamron, Sigma, Hoya, and Cosina.

In essence, that’s also a way of saying, “Jeez, this thing is light.” I walked around the Ridgewood Reservoir and Highland Park in Queens, NY with this lens and the camera for around 4 hours with little to no fatigue. In fact, I could’ve been shoot for far longer if I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment to go to. From 5:30am to 9:30, this lens was attached to the GFX body and I had no issues handholding it for a very long walk of several miles. To boot, I didn’t even drink caffeine or had more than a few sips of water.

This lens feels great in the hand and it’s got weather resistance built in. That’s needed much more than you’d think, especially when it comes to birding. Here in NYC, the best birding time is typically in fall or spring. It’s during that time that you need the durability of this lens. With lots of controls all over it, you’re always going to be able to find what you need easily. At one point I needed to set the focus to manual override, and with a switch of a slider on the lens, I got it activated.

A Reminder to Protect Your Camera Gear

Even though the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 boasts weather resistance, your warranty won’t cover problems that may occur with it from wear and tear. This is why we have the Photography Care Plan.

For years, here at The Phoblographer we’ve done tests on cameras, lenses, bags, computers, lights, and more. And we know that your warranty doesn’t always cover the damage. Plus, accidents can happen on set.

This is why we’ve created a Photography Care Program in partnership with Full-Frame Insurance. Now, photographers across the United States looking for extra security can get various protections to cover their craft. The Photography Care Program provides peace of mind; now you’ll know you can bounce back from a photoshoot gone awry, on-site or inside. We’re making it super easy to get it done, too! Better yet, there is coverage outside of the US and Canada when the photographer is traveling for short periods of time for business.

We’re able to do this through our partnership with Full-Frame Insurance, a company specializing in Small Business Insurance. Are you a Freelance Photographer? We’ll cover you. What about a freelance multi-media journalist? We’ve got you. The Photography Care Program will protect you.

Focusing

The autofocus is really only as good as the camera system in many ways. And overall, Fujifilm is behind the pack. Still, you can get great photos with this lens. I tended to use the Fujifilm GFX 100S in AF-C mode with tracking. Overall, it did an alright job. But even when setting the camera up to track and lock onto birds, it’s not the most ideal system. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, and Panasonic are all still doing a better job. It doesn’t hurt that they all have scene detection, either.

With the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6, the autofocus is pretty slow when the GFX is set to normal mode. Set it to Boost Mode with one of the autofocus priority settings, and it will indeed get a bit of an extra boost. But still, you’re going to miss shots. With patience and perseverance, a skilled veteran photographer will still get a lot of great images to take home.

By all means, though, this isn’t capable of standing up to anything from Canon or Sony’s 35mm full-frame options. Nor can it match any birding lens attached to the Nikon Z8, Nikon Z9, Leica SL3, or Panasonic S5 II with the latest firmware update.

So, is it slow? Yes. Is it medium format? Yes. Am I surprised and disappointed at Fujifilm? No.

Oh, and it will have problems finding small, fast birds in the foliage, let alone keeping up with them. However, that could be because it’s attached to an older GFX camera. As it is, I’d be a bit disappointed if I had to upgrade cameras to get the most out of a lens like this.

Mind you, slow isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With the GFX, I returned to shooting a single frame at a time with continuous and tracking autofocus enabled. I took home fewer images, but I was much more intentional and careful about what I shot. This is the type of photography that I’ve been missing for such a long time. It’s the antithesis of shooting 120 frames a second just because you can only so you will need to figure it out later. If you need an AI plugin to cull your images for you when you’re not shooting a paid gig, are you even being intentional when you shoot?

Even if I’m on a paid gig, I cull in-camera with star ratings, and I never look back. Slowing down yields you great images, and there’s something to be said for giving the camera and lens more assistance than using scene detection. Don’t get me wrong, scene detection is an incredible invention that has democratized photography is so many ways. But I wouldn’t expect it at all to work that well with the GFX system because they’ve always been behind in that department.

Ease of Use

When photographing birds with this lens, always ensure the OIS is activated, the autofocus presets are dialed in, and the focus limiter it set to what you want. Using the GF 500mm f5.6 is a point-and-shoot affair for the most part. I’m really not kidding about the image stabilization — I’m very capable when it comes to handholding lenses but even I need help here. Otherwise, bring a tripod with you.

For extra fun, enable the GFX camera to 35mm format mode to get a true 500mm f5.6.

Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Image Quality

This next section of the hardware segment is for anyone who’s been shooting Fujifilm for years. I’ve been a Fujifilm user since the X Pro 1, and please trust me when I say this: something feels off – and it has ever since the release of the new 23mm f1.4 R WR lens. It’s far more clinical and sterile feeling than the company’s previous lenses. In meetings with Fujifilm, they’ve also acknowledged that you can get the character you want from those older lenses.

At the same time, I’m talking about X mount. This is GF mount – so things might be different. They’re probably going much more clinical here overall. For the wildlife crowd they’re reaching long and hard for, I understand that.

So yes, it’s sharp – and at times can even have a soft sharpness. But I’m pretty sure that this is based on the film simulation. With Velvia enabled, I got some insanely sharp photos. With Classic Chrome, I got some softness. With that said, this lens teeters between clinical and character. This, again, makes me believe that this is a Sigma lens at least in some way. But again, I’m not 100% sure.

I shot most of my photos using the Classic Chrome simulation because it mimics the look of vintage National Geographic magazines. And overall, I loved the look I got. I truly can’t complain much here. This was indeed my inspiration for the images as well. When I first got into photography, I used to enter National Geographic’s Weekly Shot contest where they’d showcase images from readers on their website. That, and many of the photos that I’ve seen in magazines are the ones that I love so much. The last time that I really got images like this from a Fujifilm camera were with the Fujifilm 200mm f2 lens and the 150-500mm Tamron lens on X mount. But on GF mount, they’re even better.

During the morning sunrise, the sun and leaves would interplay off of the natural colors of the birds’ feathers. At times, it would mimic the wonderful look of the sun shining off of the sea. That’s to say that it seemed to almost sparkle. Where the sun sparkles a celestial silver off of the water, it glows with a warm, welcoming, and wondrous soft golden in the trees. This soft gold is bedazzling – and with the right white balance it creates images that many will want to stare at for a long time. This soft light only helps to accentuate how beautiful the bokeh from this lens can be. Even when I was having traditional “issues” with the electronic shutter, the images were still nice to look at and made for aesthetic effects that I couldn’t stop staring at.

On the LCD screen, some of the images absolutely looked like a beautiful, hyperrealistic painting. In the way that old master painters were inspired by swans along a lake, you could be easily enamored with Mallards in murky pools. Some of you folks might be going for the most clinically sound images. But there comes a point in your photography journey where you know that you can get that easily from all the camera gear on the market and if you can’t, then you often just need to use a flash or a CPL filter. This lens is one of the best ones I’ve seen to live on the edge of each of those worlds.

With so much gear on the market, it’s hard to sometimes stay inspired. But this one makes it easy. The GFX system is far superior to the X series, where APS-C sensors are truly now running into performance barriers. Using this lens made me so proud of the photos I made.

Extra Sample Images

The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience since day one. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, many folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So, we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can decide for yourself.

Unedited

Edited

Flawed, But Artistically Cool

I’m purposely including these images to remind everyone that we’re an art website first and to move away from the traditional conversations around image quality. Every camera and every lens can give you a great image these days. The manufacturers are overengineering things to suppress what they think are flaws. But at the same time, by creating more clinical images, we’re all creating the same photos and not differentiating ourselves from AI.

Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Tech Specs