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Nick Coury (10)

Nick Coury, Cr. Photog., has worked in the color lab business for the past 12+ years. In this capacity he has traveled all of the country and been in many, many studios. As a result of seeing many studios work flow, he knows some things that work and some that just don’t. The single best thing a studio can do today in the digital transition is to take time to get in control of their capture. All of the needed tools are readily available and all you need to do is learn to use them properly.

Nick is a member of the Fuji Talent Team of speakers. In addition, Nick has served multiple times as a teaching assistant with Will Crockett’s Four Day Advanced Digital Schools. He has assisted at the Texas School with over 840 students, one of the largest in the nation. He has also taught twice at the East Coast School in North Carolina.

Tuesday, April 15 2008

Steps to Successful DIY Printing

Written by Nick Coury

Many labs have introduced low print pricing to get your work. You can now buy 8x10’s for about $2.00 most anywhere. No coupons necessary, so what’s the catch? You have to submit PERFECT, color corrected files every single time. There are no “remakes” and if there is a problem…it is yours and yours alone. Piece of cake, right? Well maybe, but only if you have bullet proof workflow and are consistent with the way you prepare your files. OK, so how do you get those files? Well, there are several ways to get there so here are a few options, you can pick the one that is right for you.

Monday, November 29 1999

On Location Printing

Written by Nick Coury

Recently I was approached by one of my commercial clients to photograph a "Shareholder Appreciation Picnic" they were hosting. This was not a glamorous job, it was being held at their research farm facility in beautiful Amish Country. The job? Photograph their investors and families as a casual family group around stacked bales of straw, or an American Gothic Scene complete with period clothing and pitchfork or the most popular set, milking a cow. This is a big deal for city folks that really have no idea where milk comes from and proved to be the most popular set. There was one stipulation on the event; the owner wanted to be able to give these families a 5x7 in a frame that day.

Monday, November 29 1999

Nick's Top Ten List of Winter Activities

Written by Nick Coury

If you are stuck in a cold, snowy environment like I am (Ohio to be specific), you may be looking for some constructive ideas for the next few months. Here are a few that you may want to consider.

Monday, November 29 1999

Time Management

Written by Nick Coury

Let’s face it; there are only so many hours in a day and lots of demands for those hours. I am an early riser and still never seem to get everything done on my “to do” list. Just like you I have to decide which tasks are not going to get done and then get rid of them or move them to another day.

Monday, November 29 1999

Sports Success

Written by Nick Coury

Here it is spring and many of us are off to photograph Spring Sports and little leagues. In Ohio we are either taking our chances shooting outside or we are chased into Activity Centers, Fire Houses or High School Gyms to do the work. As I write this I am scheduled to help a photographer shoot 1,000 little baseball players tomorrow. Today the sky is black; the league will make the call by 6:00 tonight. If they call it “inclement weather”, we will set up for three shooters to do the job inside tomorrow. Once set up, that is how the job will go off…hopefully.

Monday, November 29 1999

Exposure, Exposure, Exposure

Written by Nick Coury

Exposure. It has to be the single trickiest thing to master in the digital transition. I talk to photographers every day that have been fighting this battle and loosing. When I say they are loosing, they continue to try and nail down their exposures, but it just doesn’t happen. They get in front of their computers to open up their files and find out that something went wrong. Remember the good old days when the only button on the top of the camera was a shutter button? Occasionally they accidentally hit one of the many buttons on the top of the camera and didn’t check the display only to find out that they are way out of balance.

Monday, November 29 1999

Photo Gremlins

Written by Nick Coury

Not a day goes by at the lab that I don’t have to make a call to a studio to tell them we just can’t print what they want. There are lots of reasons for this call; sometimes the file is too small. Maybe they are a newbie and thought that they could get a lot more exposures on that 1 GB card by just shooting smaller files without affecting anything. That is fine until someone orders something larger than a 4x5 print.

Monday, November 29 1999

Take Time for You. (You are all you got)

Written by Nick Coury

Here we are in October and if you are like I am, you could be approaching burn out. I talk to studio owners every single day that tell me how burned out they are. It might be mental, physical or emotional burn out, it really doesn’t matter. If your days are too long and your demands are too much, you will burn out. It’s kind of like your computer; not if it crashes but WHEN it crashes. You WILL burn out at sometime in your life if you don’t take steps to avoid it. It is much better if you prepare yourself against it than to try and recover from it.

Monday, November 29 1999

Meta What

Written by Nick Coury

I was driving home a few weeks ago when I received a call. The number was a Cleveland area code, and I had no idea who it was. Since I was all “plugged in” anyway, I decided to take the call. This turned into a very interesting half hour conversation about some of my images.

Monday, November 29 1999

Happy New Technology!

Written by Nick Coury

Christmas was incredible with all of our adult children home for the holidays. I have a daughter that lives in San Diego that was home for two weeks. On Christmas day her boyfriend flew in for about a week. My son came up from Atlanta and my daughter and son in law from Dayton. They are all very creative people and in their mid to late 20’s. So as you can imagine, our presents look much different than years gone by. Technology was the gift to give and to get. Information sharing is nearly “real time” now for most people. I thought this would be a good time to ask you how accessible you are to your potential clients?