Category: Articles

Now is the month of Maying

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There is an old saying that goes something along the lines of “April showers bring May flowers.” While this is generally a principle that holds true, in the photography world, it is also the time when things start really hopping. Below is a list of just some of the activities that drive the photography industry as we move into late Spring and early Summer:

  1. Wedding season kicks into high gear (wedding photographers)
  2. High school and college graduation parties are scheduled (which is great for portrait photographers)
  3. Engagements are announced (with anticipation of #1 the following year) (portrait photographers again)
  4. Family portraits are planned in conjunction with all of the above (portrait photographers yet again)
  5. A new season of sports swings into gear such as baseball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming, and countless other summer leagues (great for sports shooters)
  6. Mating seasons begin for birds (nature photographers)
  7. Rivers, streams, and waterways are teaming with new life (landscape photographers are just ecstatic)

Continue reading “Now is the month of Maying” →

A marriage made in Heaven – FTP and Raw

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Yes, that’s right, I am taking a pretty drastic departure from the alliterative titles for posts, but today the two topical subjects are so widely divergent, the title seemed rather amusing. As most of my readership knows, I have been working for some time no on a variety of articles discussing how to create and publish your photos in an online web gallery. For those of you that missed the first few articles, check out the first two articles here and here. Well, today is the unveiling of the 3rd chapter – FTP software. I give a short comparative explanation of a few interface options for both Mac and Windows. That article will be downloadable at the end of the post.

For the other half of the post today, I’d actually like to give some kudos to Scott Kelby over on his blog Photoshop Insider, where he gives an excellent summary of the differences between how Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) functions in Photoshop versus Bridge and versus Lightroom. I know quite a few people (myself included at least initially when LR first came out) had some trouble grasping the differences between each of these uses, and Scott really gives an good post on clarifying this. Plus, it’s Scott Kelby, so there’s always some humor thrown in for good measure! Check it out when you have a minute.

We’re probably not going to get the needed count of 100 votes in the poll for this cycle, but if you haven’t yet, register your category today (see right hand panel for options). I’ll hopefully have a more thought-provoking poll available in May. I’m sure there’s more news to report, but what with getting the photo site (www.jasons-photography.com) more inline and presentable, as well as getting some actual business cards made up and starting to advertise and promote things, I’ve not read much on the web lately. For a good web resource on many of the latest happenings, stop over at Jason D. Moore’s site. He gives an excellent wrap-up every Monday, and has links to a lot of the more popular blogs and photo outlets on the net. He’s linked on the side panel too as I am a member of his blogroll (I actually had the honor of helping out and sitting in on a weekly P&P a week or so ago… *waves to Jason in case he’s reading*…)

Finally today, an amusing shot of the dog from messing around with ambient light earlier today on our afternoon walk (and I am starting to include larger sized images to share so if you click on the pic, be prepared for a pretty large image (1023×646):

maggie.jpg

So, with an article, a web link and a potd, I bid all the reading and viewing audience a good evening and wish you happy shooting tomorrow. Remember to watch those apertures! 😉

Meaningful Monday Materials

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Yeah yeah, I know, sometimes the alliteration gets old, but it really is a disease for someone who enjoys to write! Anyway, resuming the content on how to create web galleries, I thought that today would be a good day to share the next chapter draft with the reading/listening/viewing audience.

This go around, it’s Chapter 3 which talks about some of the basic coding concepts. If you are going to be customizing your web galleries from software like Lightroom or Photoshop, some basics of coding concepts are helpful to get the end results you need. Thus, I’ve put together a very basic, but detailed article that talks about the most basic of coding, being HTML and CSS. I also include some useful resources for those interested. Anyway, not much else to report today. For some news and events from around the web, stop over to Jason D’ Moore’s site for his Monday P&P Blogroll. (Thanks for the linkback Jason, and helping out last week was a lot of fun, let me know if you ever need any assistance – it really kept me on my proverbial toes!) 🙂

Happy shooting all, and watch those apertures! Here’s the link to the PDF article:  Coding Basics.pdf

Monday Madness: Some news and Making Money ideas for Small Timers

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Hello again all, and first off, let me apologize for not making my typical Friday appearance, some stuff came up here that called me away from the blog on short notice. I’m back today though, and I’ll give a Friday Funny at the end, courtesy of WTD, but for the time being, I have a few exciting things to share:

  1. I am almost done with my photo gallery articles! – I will likely have another podcast or two on using other apps like Jalbum, but would like to finish out the written version first before devoting time to that. More to come this week on that subject.
  2. As my photo friends return from PSW chock full of their own tips and excitement at the show, I saw two of them throw a few trackback links to some stuff from here at CB, so thanks and shout outs to Mark and Jason!
  3. As if I don’t have enough things to do on my plate, I also started yet another project that I had been meaning to pick up. I am ditching all my photo magazines! I have been a regular subscriber to Popular Photography, Shutterbug, Rangefinder, PC Photo, and Photoshop Insider for some time now, and they are now all going in the garbage can. Read on for more info on that!

Continue reading “Monday Madness: Some news and Making Money ideas for Small Timers” →

Here we go again…another round of web galleries!

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It’s Monday again, and I’ve been working on the first round of revisions to my set of articles on creating a web gallery. As the age old saying goes, if you really wanna learn the nitty gritty of how to do something – try teaching it! To take that to the next level, try teaching it without an audience!

After sharing my first rough draft of the Introductiion and Chapter 1, I saw some areas where improvement was (and possibly is still needed.) I tapped away at that over the weekend, since the weather turned out to be such a downer (cloudy with a chance of rain and just blustery and cold – bleah!). So, no shots to share today, instead it’s a revision of the Chapter 1 for the new set of articles. Also, I am pleased to say that Tuesday’s tutorial is finished and should be prepped for early release, so it should be available after work today. In the meantime, here’s the edited Chapter 1. Feel free to share your thoughts, feedback and discussion in the comments section. Until this afternoon then, hope all your snaps are good ones! Happy shooting and watch those apertures!

Monday Mental Challenge

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This week I am taking a different tack on my blogging for two reasons. First, I’d like to start featuring more articles, both as individual segments that can stand on their own, but that also could become part of a larger work. Based on feedback I’ve received from family and friends, it seems I do sometimes have a knack for the written word. I’d like to share some of these articles with the blogging community i the hopes of receiving more critical and objective feedback on their usefulness. Second, the thrust behind this initial thrust of articles is based on some repeated questions I’ve received in both the blogging community and the photography community of local and online brethren. So, in at least a tangential sense, the larger scope of this is not only to compile a series of articles that is publishable, but also as independent topics that can serve as tips and helpful resources for those that do read this with any regularity. Continue reading “Monday Mental Challenge” →

Monday Evening Musings

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The routine and time change caught me ff guard this morning so I didn’t get a chance to poke my head online and make a post for the day.  So, a little late, here’s an article I had put together on the basics of shutter speeds and apertures a short time ago.  Hopefully a fresh spin on the basics of how they work.  More tomorrow.  Keep on clicking those shutters, and watch the apertures (how appropos!)!

Tips for Photo Walks

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Hey all, sorry for the late posting today – in the middle of the week I don’t have as much time to put material together. However, a few weeks ago Scot Sherman and Michael Stein took a photo walk with some listeners from their Digital Photography Show while in Vegas. That, in conjunction with a new site developed specifically for photo walks, made me start thinking about the keys for success to photo walks, and what our local group (The South Carolina Photography Guild) does on a regular basis. Since I had already offered to share those thoughts with Scott and Michael, I figured it’d be an interesting subject for a “Thursday Thoughts.” So, I starting putting pen and ink together for a PDF supplemental post this week, and that’s been completed. In the interests of keeping the post short so everyone can enjoy the two-page diatribe on “Keys to Successful Photo Walks”, I’ll bid you all a thoughtful Thursday. Happy Shooting and remember to watch those apertures!

ETA:  Jeff Revell was interviewed on the DPS which was released yesterday. He does a write-up on the subject today (3/20), so I am going back into this post to add this link to that post.  Congrats Jeff!

Five Fabulous Photo Fixes! (for Friday)

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Woo Hoo! Friday is finally here – time to go out photoggin’ again! Tonight I head up with the better half to Columbia to celebrate an in-law birthday. Then, Saturday, back to Charleston for a photo shoot with some fellow photogs from Flickr (hey, that’s some cool alliteration, and it was unintentional there! 🙂 ). Then Saturday evening I am meeting up with some good friends from my days at the College of Charleston. We’ll probably turn a few up that night!

Then, Sunday a current co-worker will be stopping by the house to help me assess some options for further upgrading the house. The screening in of the patio did not go quite as planned, as the contractor got the heave-ho from me a few days ago so now it’s up to me (and Dean) to finish what he didn’t, and fix what he screwed up.

In other news, I’d like to take a brief moment and thank Zack for chiming in on yesterday’s post with his thoughts on flying. Very informative, and after sharing a few emails, (and shots), I’ve got to say he’s got the knack for photography! Great portraiture on his site, and lots of fun to peruse. Here’s the link, so feel free to stop in on Zack’s photos and share your comments with him. Best of luck with the photography Zack – here’s hoping it goes well! 🙂

Oh well , so much for weekend fun, eh? Well, the good news is I’ve been doing a little reading and thinking, and you know what that means – a new Fabulous Five for Friday!

Specifically, I’ve put together five pretty common ways and suggestions from a wide breadth of reading materials that the pros seem to agree on to improve your pictures. I’ve given it a little twirl of my style and perspective, but the nuts and bolts should be pretty much in line with what I’ve come to understand are the fundamentals of photography. So…with no further ado – here’s the Top Five for Friday:

Five Fabulous Photo Fixes

  1. Choose interesting subjects
  2. Be aware of lighting and its impact
  3. Watch out for distractions
  4. Be aware of your gear choices
  5. Watch for colorful contrasts

Details in the download…

Video tutorial delayed

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As the Thanksgiving holiday recedes into the past, a few lingering tasks remained so the tutorial that I had planned for production tonight is not complete yet.  But, never fear, fellow photogs, I have something to share.  It seems recently that there has been a lot of focusing (bad pun) on photoshop techniques, yet we have these amazing devices that can really do wonders if we know how to use them – called cameras.  As a service for those that could use some additional explanation, and as a refresher for the rest of us, I’ve put together a paper on determining the best apertures and shutter speeds for various compositions.  Check it out below.  In the meantime, happy shooting, and I promise a tutorial will be available for viewing tomorrow.  Until then…enjoy the written word!  

apertures-and-shutters.pdf

Postscript:  As an additional thought – I keep a cheat sheet of this info in my camera bag as a reference chart for what different apertures and shutters accomplish at each stop’s setting.  If anyone would like a copy (it’s laminated and easy to fit in a side pocket), email me and I’ll get you a hard copy.