Today, we interview Ira Block about his business.

Ira is well known for his work with the National Geographic, and he is also a commercial photographer.

He uses PhotoDeck for stock, as an online archive, and, with his clients, for proofing.

New York City in Chelsea.

Realistic, I try to take photos, many times using lighting. I don’t create them in Photoshop.

The casting of Sue in Beamsville, Ontario

Files get downloaded and go into Expression Media or Photomechanic to be edited, captioned, renamed and keyworded. I then move into Lightroom or Photoshop to do adjustments to the raw files. They are converted to PSDs or TIFFS and then put into my archive.

Most of my work is editorial for the National Geographic and corporate for many companies. I do a lot of lighting for both the National Geographic and for the corporations.

Photography was a hobby in high school and at the start of college. It got a bit expensive so I started making money selling photos. I worked my way through college at the local newspaper.

Spruce Tree House, an archaeological site in Mesa Verde National Park

Now I rely on the web and social networking for a lot of business.

I do exhibits, workshops and lectures and they help a lot in driving people to my website, blog, Facebook page or Twitter.

Learning lighting.

World Trade Center, footprint of the fallen Tower 2

Not getting involved in selling stock photography earlier in my career. I should have been more aware of the value of my photographic library. I was young and was only interested in getting out and shooting new things, not dealing with images I already shot.

Busy, being a photographer now requires doing a lot of different things with your images. In the past it was very linear.

Shoot a lot of photos and shoot what you like.

A local man holding two plants while unloading gear at Pelican Cay during the filming of an IMAX movie in the Bahamas.

DSLR video is a great way of story telling, but it requires a new learning curve. It also means spending a lot of time at the computer in post production. I’d rather send my footage out and have someone else do the editing. On a big shoot I’d hire an experienced videographer and be the producer/director. And of course sound is so important, you need to hire someone who knows what they are doing.

Keeping up with technology and deciding what I really need to spend time and money on learning.

Archeologists working in Border Cave, South Africa

It’s a good way to sell my stock on the web and it’s handy to have my archive on line. I can send clients lightboxes and galleries from anywhere in the world.

It’s simple and easy to use.

I’d like to be able to send clients downloadable galleries without having them be registered users.

Israeli artist Ilana Goor