David Degner

Boston Photographer and Photojournalist

Blog

I often have random side projects, especially related experiments with new technology and knowledge that I learned the hard way and want to share.

What do I wear for a portrait?

What do I wear for a portrait?

And other common questions.

Wear the clothes that make you comfortable. Wear the clothes that help you feel confident walking into a room of strangers or highlighting a part of your personality.

A few rules of thumb are: solids colors are better than patterns because busy patterns distract from the face. I slightly prefer big collars, v-neck collars, and just no round t-shirt collars. Feel free to bring an extra shirt, blouse or dress and I can help you choose.

Try to schedule the portrait for a good hair day. This might mean going for a touch-up a few days before, washing your hair the night before, or not. Everyone’s hair is different; mine looks fanciest when I roll out of bed, and there’s a cow-lick in the back.

I don’t photoshop out blemishes for editorial portraits because of photojournalistic ethics. But you can wear makeup if it makes you feel more comfortable. I love fancy eyeliner and bright lipstick.

I can do more to make skin look clear in commercial portraits, but I have to balance that with keeping the skin looking natural. I don’t do significant alterations in photoshop to take off 20 years or 20 pounds, but I do have some tricks in camera to make you look your best.

Where to shoot the portrait?

Portraits require some space. Academic offices are usually too small. Rooms with a big conference table are problematic for lights. My favorite locations are atriums, dens, studio apartments, patios, & lawns.

Backgrounds are essential but can be fudged. For example, if the portrait is for a specific institution or company there can be hints in the background. Most of the time, I use the background for the atmosphere and keep it nondescript.

I often make portraits at my Somerville portrait studio because it has space and a variety of backgrounds that I can control.

How long does a portrait take?

I once had 2 minutes to shoot a portrait of the King of Jordan in his office. If I’m honest, it was one of my worst portraits ever.

A good portrait takes an hour or two to coax the most out of the sitter, location, and lighting. A great portrait takes days or weeks.

How many photos are delivered?

That depends on the purpose of the portraits. If you need one photo for a magazine cover, we will focus on making one fantastic photo. If you need a library of images for social media, we can make a wide variety.

After two hours, I’ll edit out about 25 images that give the client or sitter a good variety of options.

Build a Photography Portfolio with WordPress

WordPress is not designed for photography portfolios or high-quality photo presentations. So, it takes some work to make WordPress photo-friendly. In the end, it is possible to have a beautiful, fast photography portfolio with WordPress.

I put a special emphasis on making sure my photos look good and the portfolio loads quickly because visitors will stay longer and Google’s ranking algorithm promotes faster websites.

WordPress Photo Portfolio Mistakes

If this is your first time building a WordPress photography portfolio here are some common mistakes to avoid. None of these mistakes will destroy your website, but they will hurt your portfolio over time.

  1. Don’t use a fancy gallery plugin. They look beautiful at first but if you use a non-standard photo gallery plugin you will be stuck with it. Does anyone remember SlideShowPro? In a few years, the developer may stop updating it, and then your website will be broken. I break this rule by using the SimpleLightbox plugin (originally I was using the Simple Lightbox plugin), but it is designed so that uninstalling it doesn’t break my website. The built-in gallery functions work well and you can adjust the CSS theme to make it personal.
  2. Don’t use WordPress.com. By far the easiest way to set up a WordPress website is with wordpress.com, but it limits the themes and plugins that you can use which will hurt the quality of the site in the long run.
  3. Don’t use flashy themes. It is very tempting to buy the flashiest WordPress portfolio theme off of Theme Forest. They look great in the demos, and have fancy animations, and pretty colors. But they are usually designed with non-standard gallery plugins that, return to point 1, will be broken in a few years and are clunky to actually use daily.

WordPress Photography Portfolio Tips

These are the tips and tricks that I learned as I made this photo portfolio site over the past years and many iterations.

  1. The default Gutenberg page builder is probably good enough. Alternative page builders like Divi and Elementor give more control, but their complex code will slow down the website’s load time, and slow your process of building the site. If you must use an alternative page builder for more flexibility, I’d suggest Oxygen. It is the most complicated but produces clean, relatively fast code.
  2. Upload large high-quality images, and WordPress will compress and resize them appropriately. I save photos as 90% sRGB jpegs in photoshop at full-res usually around 5000px. Yes, AdobeRGB preserves more color information, but many web browsers don’t display it correctly and the colors will appear flat.
  3. Make sure ImageMagick is installed and being used as your server’s image processing engine. It makes better-looking compressions and preserves the image’s color profile. Unfortunately, it isn’t completely PHP 8.0 compatible yet [April 2021], so keep your server on PHP 7.4 for a little while longer. You can check this in the WordPress admin section by going to Site Health -> Media.
  4. Use an OpenLiteSpeed or LiteSpeed server connected to their Quic.cloud CDN. This has a lot of benefits. The LiteSpeed server stack is faster than the normal Apache server. It will also convert JPEGs to WebP files which are smaller and still high quality, and it makes an LQIP so that the photos appear to load faster. Plus all of this software and CDN are free for a portfolio-sized low-traffic website.
  5. Then let WordPress resize the photos but reduce WordPress’s default compression. Mine is set at 90%, some set it to 100%. Add this line of code to your function.php file, changing the number to your desired setting. add_filter( ‘jpeg_quality’, create_function( ”, ‘return 90;’ ) );
  6. Turn off “Scaled” image and webP. WordPress introduced a “Scaled” image in 5.3, where when you load a full-res image it automatically makes a 1200px version and all subsequent resizing happen from that 1200px version while the full-res image is never used or shown again. There is a “Scale Large Image Threshold” plugin that allows you to increase the size of that image. I set mine to 4000px. Be careful, the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin won’t regenerate the scaled image, so you will want to set all this up before uploading your photos. I pray for the day WordPress gives easy control and more documentation on the scaled images.
  7. Use themes built by experts. Many have free versions. Here are a few of my favorites: GeneratePress, Astra, Genesis, ThemesKingdom. I use a slightly modified version of the Genesis Sample Theme on this website.

Conclusion

If you aren’t comfortable on the command line steps 2 and 3 can be simplified by using a managed host from here: https://litespeedtech.com/partners/hosting-providers

But, in the end, I’m serving high-quality images, on a $5 Linode server and still have a 100% on PageSpeed Insights.

That speed mainly comes from carefully choosing the building blocks for my WordPress photography portfolio. I started with the Genesis framework and edit my posts with the default Gutenberg. Because the native page builder has a lower server overhead and longer support horizon.

To reduce the file calls I’m using a self-hosted Matomo for stats, self-hosting my fonts (not downloading them from google fonts), and using an emoji for a favicon.

My Favorite Boston Photographers on Instagram

I’m just one of many Boston-based photographers. Many of us publish our work on Instagram, and I love to follow the photo stories that appear. Watching photographers from around New England is interesting, but I particularly enjoy it when a significant event happens, and I see it photographed from many diverse perspectives by these professionals.

These Boston photographers have their specialty, portrait photography, breaking news, or in-depth stories, but they are all photojournalists. I started with a list of about 50 editorial photographers and narrowed it down to a few of my colleagues that I enjoy the most. If you want to be added to the list, please email me.

If you want to follow the news around Boston on Twitter, I curate a list here: Greater Boston News.

Boston photographers cover the George Floyd protest in late may on its way to Downtown Boston.
A protest of thousands organized by three young women marched through Boston to the State House demanding Justice for George Floyd and reform on May 31, 2020, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Top Boston Photographers

David Degner – My Instagram feed is a mixture of editorial photo assignments with national publications and personal photo projects. ( https://www.DavidDegner.com )

Jodi Hilton – Jodi has traveled worldwide to cover wars and revolutions. But I love how she also photographs the stories in our backyard of Cambridge, Massachusetts. ( https://www.jodihilton.com )

Philip Keith – A Boston photograph with his vision. He makes excellent portraits of important people and stories in the Boston area ( https://philipckeith.com )

M. Scott Brauer – A Boston photojournalist probably best known for his political photography spanning the last decade. He always creates unique portraits and photos of news events. ( https://www.mscottbrauer.com )

Brad Romano – Whenever one of his photos pops up on my feed, I know I’ll like it. Usually, they are clean and colorful and from an unexplored part of the city. ( http://www.bradromano.photography )

OJ Slaughter – OJ’s work doesn’t fit into the traditional editorial mold, but their photos make a statement about the world today. ( https://www.ojslaughter.com )

Allison Dinner – Allison is another photographer who works in the middle of harsh situations worldwide. Her latest photos are from the Mexican border, but she also works in her backyard. ( https://allisondinner.com )

John Tlumacki – For that daily dose of newspaper photography. John is a Boston Globe photojournalist and shows his talent, especially in sports photography.

Many Boston based photographers cover events all around New England.
I drive more than three hours north from Boston to reach Tenant’s Harbor. Halfway up Maine’s coast. If I were to continue for another three hours, I would be in Canada. I join Jason, the captain, and Ethan, the sternman, on the docks before sunrise to get to the lobsters.

More Photographers in Boston & New England

Here’s a list of other great Boston photojournalists and a more comprehensive selection of Boston-based photographers that I follow. There are many other great photographers that I haven’t added. Please send suggestions, especially of your own Instagram feed, to me if you have suggestions!

Harry Scales

Winslow Martin

Josh Campbell

Angela Rowlings

Brian Babineau

Christopher Evans

Paul Rutherford

Amy O’Brien

Gaelen Morse

Dylan Azari

Faith Ninivaggi

If you have made it this far, you might as well follow the Boston Red Sox: @RedSox

Joe Kennedy made phone calls at a campaign headquarters on August 29, 2020, in Lowell, Massachusetts. According to most polls, Rep. Joseph Kennedy III is trying to unseat Markey in the primary but is facing an uphill battle. Though he is the incumbent, Markey is somewhat vulnerable due to the Kennedy name in Massachusetts. (Photo by David Degner/New York Times)

Change the default Camera App on an iPhone

iOS Camera apps like Halide give more control than the default camera app.
Some moments require more control than the default iOS camera app gives.

As a Boston Photographer, I prefer to use Halide but rarely open it because the Camera app icon on the lock screen is more convenient.

In iOS 13, Apple opened the iPhone so users could select many default apps for things like email and browsers. But unfortunately, they don’t allow you to choose your default Camera app yet.

With the updates to the Shortcuts app in iOS 14 and especially iOS 14.1, we can seamlessly make any app our default Camera App. Clicking on the Camera icon on iPhone Lock Screen or Dashboard can now open the app of your choice.

Step-by-step instructions to change the default Camera App on your iPhone

Open the “Shortcuts” App

It is used to automate actions on your phone

Select “Automation”

It is at the bottom of the screen

Tap the + sign

This starts the process of adding a new Automation

Tap “Create Personal Automation.”

Scroll down a little and select “App”

This will allow us to trigger the automation by opening the Camera App

Choose “Camera”

This will make opening the “Camera” app the trigger to our shortcut.

Select “Add Action”

When the shortcut is activated it will trigger these actions.

Select “Scripting”

It sounds scary but we will be triggering a very simple script.

Select “Open App”

The script will be to open an alternative Camera app.

Select “Choose” and find the alternative default camera app.

I chose Halide because it gives a lot of control, but any Camera app will work.

Voila! You are done. Now when you hit any of the Camera icons your new default camera App will open up!

I personally turn off the “Ask Before Running” because I want to be a transition as smooth as possible.

But you may want to be asked before opening your default Camera App, especially if you sometimes want to shoot video in the normal iOS Camera App.

Outside my Camera Bag

Inspired by Amanda Mustard’s list of helpful tools, I compiled my list of things that make my life easier as a freelance photojournalist.

I found referral links for some items that you can use to get discounts and send rewards to me.

200 SIM Card tray eject pins – If Marie Kondo asked me what brings me the most happiness this year, it would be this box. When I get to a border, I often need to switch sim cards, and I always lose these SIM eject pins. So now I have spread these pins everywhere around my luggage and keychain, and I will always be able to find one.

TransferWise (referral link) – I get paid and pay in many currencies. With TransferWise, I don’t have fees when clients transfer to my account. I also get a reasonable rate and easily convert money between USD, GBP, EUR, and more obscure currencies. 

Things – An app for Mac and iPhone that allows me to quickly record ToDos, brainstorm larger projects, and plan out my day before everything goes pearshaped. It’s designed to be part of the Getting Things Done ecosystem and appears to be working for me.

Visible – The cheapest data in the US. It costs $25 a month for unlimited internet that can be tethered for transmitting photos on the road. When traveling abroad a lot, I used Google Fi but they have been canceling international travelers. Often it is cheaper to buy a local SIM for long-term data. And there are other eSIM data providers that you can use for those times you are stuck in the airport or cell stores haven’t opened yet.

Novo Bank – A small business-focused bank helps keep the paperwork simple. Novo has a built-in invoice system, debit card, and easy ways for clients to pay. And it’s free. I tried Lillie bank before, but they don’t have a web interface; using just their phone app can be painful.

Hiveage – We all need a system for creating and tracking invoices. Mine used to be a Google Docs template and a spreadsheet; it worked. But I find that once Hiveage is set up, it takes a lot less time, and with their iPhone app, I can quickly send an invoice while in a cab. But, unfortunately, they raised their rates recently.

Capture One – I have lived in Photoshop since version 5, but I just canceled my Adobe membership and switched to Capture One because the retouching looks more subtle when I use it. I can’t explain why but I prefer the colors and how it hides the halos produced by dodging and burning.

Wacom Intuos – Toning photos becomes physically painful, especially dodging and burning on a trackpad.  A Wacom makes it slightly less painful and has become an extension of my hand after a few weeks of fiddling.  Get the BlueTooth version so you can lean back.

Backblaze (referral link)- I finally have an offsite backup system for my 15TB archive for $50 a year.  It took a year to upload everything, but now it is easy to keep it all up to date.  Get the year extension, so you don’t have to plug-in hard drives every month or turn off backups while traveling away from your archive.

Linode (referral link)- I’ve hosted websites on DreamHost for a long time but switched to Linode with OpenLiteSpeed installed and WordPress as my CMS. It took a significant amount of time to set up and tweak, but my website is faster.

My Favorite Egyptian Photographers

There has been a surge of high-quality photographers in Egypt, and many of them are sharing their work on Instagram. I started with a list of 50 Egyptian photographers on Instagram and edited it to 15 that I feel have something unique to say about Egypt and the world through their photography. Of course, it’s just my opinion, but these are some of the best photographers in Egypt.

Most of these photographers range between editorial photojournalism and artistic photography.

Nariman El-Mofty – Started covering the revolution in Egypt and now works around the Middle East for the AP winning Pulitzer Prizes. ( website ) 

Youssef Nabil – Posts unique hand-painted nostalgia. I love when one of his photos pops up in my feed. ( website )

Laura El-Tantawy – Artist and bookmaker who puts emotion into each photo. ( website )

Ahmed Gaber – Shoots gritty images of everyday life in Egypt.

Ahmed Jamal – Posts interesting triptych, sometimes reimagining and sometimes reinforcing the visual cliches of Cairo. 

Eman Helal – The unique and indomitable documentary work from one of Egypt’s best. ( website )

Hesham Elsherif – Unique photos of everyday life in Cairo and its rural areas.

Sabry Khaled – Photographer, filmmaker, teacher curator, and all-around good guy in Cairo. ( website ) 

Salih Bashier – Works between Sudan and Cairo, especially his recent work on the Sudanese revolution. 

Dania Hany – Film and ghostly images show another side of Egypt. ( website ) 

Asmaa Waguih – One of the hardest working photojournalists based between Istanbul and Egypt but bouncing around to war zones around the Middle East, represented by Redux. ( website ) 

Roger Anis – A storyteller who is often working in Upper Egypt and finds unique stories. ( website ) 

Sima Diab – Photographer, showing us life in Cairo and Beirut, often works with international papers and magazines. ( website ) 

Ezz Monem – Not your traditional photographer. Ezz splits his time between software developer and artist, now based in Australia. ( website )

Christina Rizk – Has a clean and crisp style and works between Egypt and Germany. ( website )

Amr Alfiky – Egyptian photojournalist, based in New York, a fellow at the @nytimes 

Other Egyptian Photographer Instagramers I love 

https://www.instagram.com/mohamed_hassan.photo

https://www.instagram.com/hadeermahmoud1

https://www.instagram.com/karimelhayawan

https://www.instagram.com/haymanics

https://www.instagram.com/fathi_hawas

https://www.instagram.com/helrasam

https://www.instagram.com/mohamedmahdyph

https://www.instagram.com/xenia_nikolskaya_photography

https://www.instagram.com/ebrahimelmoly

https://www.instagram.com/mosaabelshamy

https://www.instagram.com/elkamhawi

https://www.instagram.com/omarzaki99

https://www.instagram.com/abdelrahmanmohamed0

https://www.instagram.com/somewhereincairo

https://www.instagram.com/alizaraay

If you would like your account added to this page, please email me at david@daviddegner.com. I can’t promise to add it, but I love seeing new photo projects.