After much deliberation over the fantastic compilation of images for the July contest, I’ve finally had to just make probably one of the toughest judging decisions I’ve had to make thus far in the history of the contest series. However, in light of the theme of the contest (Slick), and the creativity that went into the image itself, I have to give the nod to Stephen Ludgate for his submission: Continue reading “Lightroom 3 Contest Winner!”
Category: Contest
Shooting From the Hip
While recently taking a reality break and visiting family in my old stomping grounds, I had a chance to tour the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, NY. Viewing museums like these is a lot of fun for both kids and adults – kids because of the activities, and adults because I think as you get older, you can start to appreciate with more awareness just how tough things were (or how easy they are now). Continue reading “Shooting From the Hip”
Free Copy of Photoshop Lightroom
Contests, Contests, and yet more Contests!
The June contest came to a close on Sunday, and after looking through all the images after anonymization (a.k.a. my wife downloaded them) and import to Lightroom, the winner has been determined. (Drumroll please…) And the June winner is:
Continue reading “Contests, Contests, and yet more Contests!”
The 700 Club
This post makes it officially 700 thoughts and musings on the blog. At an average of 250 posts per year (since I don’t normally post on weekends and occasional “no blog” days), that means we are closing in on the end of three full years of blogging!
To the readers who have been there with me since the beginning, I’d like to say thanks for all your patience as I’ve walked through several fires of growing pains. I’ve come to the realization that the more you write, the greater the chance you have to sound like either a fool, or a pure and simple $%^&. Hopefully I’ve minimized both of these occurrences enough to warrant another 700 posts!
There’s a couple things coming up on the horizon that are quite exciting, and a few fire irons already nice and hot (see contest #1 and contest #2 going on right now)! The biggest change is coming at the end of the month when CB gets a pretty serious face lift. Other upcoming things of interest include a podcast with none other than Martin Bailey on Monday, the 3rd Annual World Wide Photowalk in July, and the 2nd release of the 49 Photo Tips download! (The first is still available here…) All this is accompanied by the regular news, reviews, and photography experiences/insights that I share with you here daily. So, you’d think that with all that, there’s be nothing else of a “big news” item to announce at this time. After all, it’s just Friday, right?
Well, not to disappoint, but there is some news to share with you today on post #700! This is not only news, it’s pretty big news! In fact, it’s not just pretty big news – it’s super huge! Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this? (Cue “Jock Jams“…for those of you that did not experience the early 90’s, the link may be a #lame one…)
Actually, I’d better not just quite yet. But, I can let you know that Anaheim, Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland all have something in common (they make a nice circle…don’t ya think? 🙂 )…
More tk…happy friday and have a great weekend all! Get out and shoot ya some! 🙂
Lightroom 3 Q&A (Beta)
What a great day to release a new podcast – with the final release of LR coming out very soon, I had the distinct opportunity to talk with Rob Sylvan, author of LR2 for Dummies, and the forthcoming Taking Stock. We talked a lot about Lightroom, working at NAPP, and took a few listener questions and answers. More photo news, additional Q&A, and a new feed for the podcast start today, so be sure to download the latest show. You’ll notice I have pulled the feed back to this site, and the format is more iTunes compatible (m4a) so you can now see pics and chapter segments. Continue reading “Lightroom 3 Q&A (Beta)”
Over $2000 in prizes!
With April in the books a new winner has been determined. It was a really tough call as all the entries this month were deserving, and each could have easily been considered a winner given the theme, the composition, creativity, and treatment. All in all, the cream really has risen to the top, and I am seeing some really impressive quality in the images this month.
Okay, enough dancing around the subject. The winner is:
Bryan F
Seriously, I don’t know if I can keep doing these contests, because every month the decision gets more and more difficult to make. It was a real toss up, and the only reason this one topped the others is because of the sense of tension brought to the image as well. I just kept coming back to it saying “Wow…” So, congrats to Bryan F – he is officially now the first repeat winner on LDP, and also he marks the winner who took us over the threshold of $200o in giveaway prizes! Pretty cool if you think about it – on many counts!
In new contest news – the May contest is now underway, and the theme this month is:
WIDE!
The reason? Well, by now you should know that themes are typically based around some premise of the prize, and since the prize this month is the well-respected PTGui Panorama Software (thanks to the folks over at PTGui for their generous sponsorship). Given the nature of the contest theme, there will be a slight variation this month: images should be no wider than 1600pixels on the longest side. The theme lends itself toward panorama shots, so it would be silly to restrict the dimensions to prevent any decent panos. This will also be noted in the contest thread up on Flickr. Get clicking and above all, have some fun! Deadline is the last Friday in May (28th).
Oh, and in case you can’t keep that in mind – download a May Calendar (yup, they are back at least temporarily…more on that on tomorrows blog post). For now, feel free to download your own desktop sized calendar from the links below:
For those interested in the technique, be sure to tune in tomorrow. Otherwise, happy shooting, good luck in the May contest, and we’ll see you back here mañana!
P.S. For vendors interested in sponsoring a contest or future giveaway, I am getting caught up now and ready to start scheduling giveaway content starting in August 2010. For readers, if you know of any vendors that would be cool for prizes, by all means, let me know and I’ll see if I can’t get them on board!Contest News and Announcements
Congratulations and kudos go out to the winner for the February contest – the theme was Height and the winning image came from Sue90ca! To see all the images submitted for February, check out the thread here with all the images. Some really great ones were included, and as always, it was a tough decision. Nevertheless, Sue90ca’s “Crayons” was selected as the winner.
You can see the rest of Sue’s portfolio on her Flickr stream here…
Before anyone asks, the March contest info is not up on FLickr yet, but I should have an announcement for that later on tonight. I’ll give you a WILD hint though about the subject and the prize! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
P.S. Sue, if you could email me at jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com or message me on Flickr, I need to get in touch with you about the prize delivery for February…congrats again! 🙂
New Formats for the New Year
With the advent of a new year, the podcast is hopefully going to take on a new format – with things being more conversational. Erik Bernskiold comes back to the show and we’re talking about all the latest news in photography, as well as a main talking point of how to publicize and share your images online – looking at the pros and cons of the various options that are out there. Lots of news including announcements from the recent CES show, as well as contest information, and listener questions and answers so it’s a pretty heavily packed show. Almost an hour and a half, so it could last you through a few commutes! Here’s the show notes, and enjoy!
CES News
- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V
- Casio EX-FH100
- Samsung CL80
- Sony and Olympus announced adoption of the SD format
- Samsung TL210
Canon Camera Announcements
- A3100
- A3000
- A495
- A490
We also had been noticing a lot of the newer SLR cameras have been announcing firmware updates, so if you have a relatively new SLR, check your vendor website for details.
Sharing Your Photos
- Flickr
- Forums
- DeviantArt
- Photography Corner
Hosting Services
- WordPress
- Smugmug
- Squarespace
- Livebooks
- Self-hosting
- Paying a Design Professional
Picks of the Week
- Erik’s Pick: Nicolesy Blog
- Jason’s Pick: Joe McNally’s Blog
Listener Questions
Print Resolution versus Screen Resolution (Jason)
SEO for Websites and Flash (Erik)
Catch up with me and Erik on our respective websites – you know my info, but if you want to learn more about Erik and his work, here’s his web presence links:
A long show for sure – but tons of content. Thanks to Erik for taking the time to sit down and talk again – we’re going to try to make this a regular occurrence, as well as get some others involved in the conversation! Thanks also go out to the folks at Audible for their sponsorship of the blog! Happy shooting, and share your feedback, here, on Erik’s site, on iTunes or even with the folks at PLM (thanks to them for their sponsorship as well!) Happy shooting and we’ll see you here again tomorrow!
December Winner!
The trumpets sound! The chorus rings, and the internet shall stop and take notice!
Why you ask? We have a winner for the December Giveaway! I am happy to announce that the winner of the December Giveaway Bonanza is none other than:
Frank Sammut!
Frank’s shot of a childs hand, offering up a gift perfectly symbolized the concept of giving, and his blurred bokeh of the holiday theme in the background was just beautiful! He’s got some great work on his Flickr page too, so stop by and check it out and tell him congrats!
Congratulations to Frank for winning the giveaway package! Frank, if you could drop me an email: jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com, I’ll get you all the information and relay you to the donors for the giveaway. Thank you to everyone for participating, and especially to the sponsors, including:
- David DuChemin (for a free copy of both Within the Frame, and VisionMongers)
- MPIX (for a free 16×20 gallery wrap print of Frank’s choice)
- RedRiver Papers (for the specialty paper bundle)
- HDRsoft (for the license to a copy of Photomatix Pro)
It’s also time to anounce the theme for the January giveaway. We’re going to move away from the seasonally tied themes, so people don’t feel restricted there as different areas are in different seasons. Instead, we’ll be going with something that is going to inspire some dynamite entries for sure: Circles
That’s right, we’re going with a shape! It should be interesting to see what comes in. As always the standard guidelines apply:
- Make sure your image is between 600-800px on the longest side.
- Try to keep things within the current month. Archives are okay, but preference will be given to current photos
- Images should be family/work safe
- Should be posted to the Flickr thread for the current month contest
- Deadline for entries is Friday, Jan. 29th (again, 3 weeks)
- The folks at HDR Soft have been very generous and have offered up another copy of their Photomatix Pro bundle for the January winner – so if you are into the HDR craze, or are interested, there’s another chance to win your very own licensed copy!
The January Flickr thread is up, live and ready for entries, so get out and shoot! Happy New Year and Happy Shooting!
P.S. Can anyone tell me anything different about the site? (For you feed readers, come on over and check things out – something is different! 🙂 )