Category: personal

It’s not Monday – it’s “Moo”nday!

JasonLeave a comment

I got called out on a computer task today, so got home late to a limping Labrador. My poor little pup (she’s 8 years now, but I got her at 8 weeks, so you know what I mean) was limping rather heavily and favoring one paw – she has such a forlorn look in her eyes I almost get the sense that she is crying (is it possible for dogs to cry?). Needless to say, my mind has been on some other things today. If she’s not doing better tomorrow, it’s off to the vet I go. I think she might have walked through some glass inadvertently when my wife took her for her afternoon walk while I was out.

Another fun day in the life, eh? Anyway, in light of the events of the day, I feel compelled to make a declaration that this a “Moo”nday, not a Monday (her name is Maggie, so we affectionately have called her many derivations of that, the most common of which is “Moo”). So, pardon the non-photo themed day, but I would like to share a few posts of her in kind of a tribute to the best friend I’ve ever had:

It looks like the tutorial might be pushed back a day or two. In the meantime, what does everyone think of the new Lightbox plugin I have in place for WordPress?  (Hint:  Click on an image in the post…)  Until next time:  happy shooting and watch those apertures!! 🙂

Workflow – ACR vs DNG which way to go?

Jason4 Comments

Recently two of the blogs that I read brought some meaningful insight on individual work flow perspectives. The first was Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider, where he had a few people criticize his critique of camera raw in Photoshop CS3, Lightroom, and Bridge. It was a pretty good and informative post, but a select few saw that as an opportunity to say that he was not giving Apple’s Aperture a fair shake. He actually replied to the comments (which he normally doesn’t do), and with quite an effective argument. This was quite the departure from his normal style, where he has just a few things to say and they are punctuated by pictures, as he likes the visual aids. The ultimate point though, was that Scott is very much a fan of the Adobe Camera Raw in his work flow and post processing of prints.

The other was Mike Johnston’s The Online Photographer. TOP is a great blog if you like to read, but is not very often written with the visual learner or “reader” in mind. The post that struck me was Mike’s Friday post, where he espouses “What to Buy” and his thoughts on the DNG format. While quite interesting, it’s not exactly in keeping with my thoughts on post processing.

Since I am more of an ACR guy than a DNG guy, it’s really going to be beside the point to discuss my feelings on work flow and post processing. Instead I am goig to take a different tack here and say that work flow is really up o whatever works best for the individual. I know some people that go with open sourced options like GIMP, and that is equally viable if the results are acceptable to the photographer. It’s ultimately a matter of this – opinion!

All of this brings me to my final point, and that is really about the nature of blogging itself. Blogging, as much as we like to think otherwise at times, is just our personal opinions. I think sometimes we get wrapped up in promoting certain ends, and I am equally guilty of that here at CB – I promote my own photography, ideals that I believe in, and software and hardware that I use. Nevertheless, it is, after all, just my opinion.

So, partly in response to those that started giving Scott K. a hard time, and in defense of Mike’s DNG work flow with the Pentax – lest we begin to take ourselves or others begin to take us too seriously, we are all just promoting our own opinions on subjects related to photography. It’s definitely useful though as different thoughts and opinions and ideas are what inspires each and every one of us to new levels of creativity and original thoughts. So, my hats off to all the blogging world, but this weekend, most especially to Scott K. and Mike J. for being on the leading edge of the topical content for photography.

In closing, I’d like to open the comment section up for others to share their thoughts and opinions on work flow, and blogging in general if you like. What work flow style do you prefer? Do you act on the recommendations of fellow bloggers, fellow photographers, or on other resources? Don’t forget to get out and shoot too though, so happy shooting and watch those apertures!

In the spirit of keeping things light-heartedly, and as a “make-up” for the short post yesterday, here’s the weekly best from What the Duck!

What the DUck - Friday, April 25th

Creating templates

JasonLeave a comment

Hey all, today is tutorial Tuesday, and I share a technique I used recently in creating a calendar template to import client photos in. I could only get about half way through the tutorial before I had to stop (I am trying to keep video tutorials at or under 5 minutes), so this will be part 1 of a two part series. Today I show you how I created the graphics with some guides, and keeping things all manageable on just a couple levels. As usual, the tutorial is linked in both Flash (web based) and QuickTime (iPod/iTunes friendly) formats at the end of the post.

Additionally, I’ve got a few rather unique shots (I think anyway) from my outing to Magnolia Gardens this weekend. There was a heavy thunderstorm the previous day, so lots of opportunities for some macro and water works. Here’s two I thought that the viewing audience might enjoy:

dewdrops21.jpg

reflectoin.jpg
That’s about it for today…a few photos and a tutorial for your viewing pleasure. A multimedia blowout this week thus far, with an article yesterday, photos and videos today, and who knows what tomorrow has in store…more articles, and maybe….an audio podcast *gasp!* (Likely not with the latter though – so no promises!) Until then, happy shooting and watch those apertures! 🙂

CB Episode 038: Calendar Template

PlayPlay

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Meaningful Monday Materials

JasonLeave a comment

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

Friday Night Lighting…(and a funny)

JasonLeave a comment

Normally Frida posts are filled with humor, funny and generally stuff that is trivia to help keep us all grounded in reality and realize that there is more to life with photography. I am starting to get a little of a backlog with the projects I’ve been working on though, so I am goig to lighten the load by one project here today – and that is a DIY lighting project.

Before I continue, the DIY lighting concept is not something that comes easily to me, as I fully admit that I am no lighting pro. If you want pro advice, the best place to go is to Strobist where David Hobby hosts an excellent lighting blog that has become pretty much the place to go for lighting tutorials. What I have learned from that site would take days to rattle off here. So, rather than regale you with all of that, I’ll just say that Strobist has given me new insight into uses for everyday objects.

Here’s the lighting project – a while back David talked on his blog about using household items to create lighting peripherals such as reflectors, bounce lights, light stands, and has been a common theme for quite a while. So, the inspiration for this came from what to use to make your own DIY snoot. A snoot is a device that focuses the light from your flash (which you know of course to take off the camera if you want really good light).

Well, at work I noticed one day that a commercial industrial sized roll of TP had been used and the cardboard roller that it was on was just sitting on top of the paper towel dispenser. I picked it up, looked it over and it seemed to be close to the size of my 550EX flash. I took it home and tried it out – bingo! The only problem was, it really wasn’t long enough. Well, no biggie, I just waited another few weeks and sure enough, another TP roller appeared on top of the towel dispenser. I snaked that one away, and brought them home. A few pieces of scotch tape to attach the two devices together and I was ready for my test shot:

snoot1.jpg

Notice the light leaking through the side though? Well, I decided good old duct tape might be able to fix that. So, a few tears and strips later, and I got this shot:

snoot2.jpg

Looking a lot better now, but now I am noticing a little light seeping through the back end still – any ideas how to eliminate that, or is that there in most snoots? Not sure, but this cost me a grand total of probably 05 ¢ of tape. So, I played around with the distance, as David suggests over at the Strobist site, and I finally am happy to announce that this snoot works best at a distance of about 4′ from the subject, and (surprise surprise) at about a 45 degree angle to the subject. I was hamming it up for the camera just to give a little variety while I figured this out, and actually came out of the lighting test with a self-portrait I am not too ashamed of. It’s end-of-week scruff, so that will be gone come Monday, but I thought the lighting effect of a snoot (concentrated light) is pretty useful.

me.jpg

So, there it is – the Friday Night Light experiment. I know it’s late, but better late than never right? Anyone else have any DIY lighting experiments they want to share? If so, all are welcome to join in the comments area. Otherwise, have a great weekend, happy shooting, and watch those apertures! (mine was a little soft – but I think that may have been oof, not dof softness)…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Fridays always feature a WTD cartoon, so here’s my fave of the week:

What The Duck, Monday April 14th

Photo Tuesday (to take your mind off taxes)

Jason4 Comments

Since I devoted Monday’s post to the Photography and Photoshop Blogroll report for Jason D. Moore, my other announcement got shifted back a day, so this week things will be a tad more compressed. I’ll try not to bore you with excessive links and heavy-handed material where you have to read a lot. That means – it’s Photo Tuesday! (The tutorial will be released Wednesday…since there’s no “Wednesday Web Gems” for the theme.) Besides, since it is a blog that I am pretty much writing single-handedly, I can change things up if I want, right? 🙂

So…for Photo Tuesday I thought I’d announce that I have a new gallery of photos put together on my dedicated photo site. The site portal is here: www.jasons-photography.com and the latest gallery addition is here. Please take a moment to stop over and then share your thoughts with me here (or via email) on the shots. Too many? Not enough? Layout? Treatment? Etc.? I’ve collected these images over the past 3-4 years and finally have enough (I think) for a dedicated gallery of wildlife. As a teaser, here’s a few thumbnails…all taken from my Canon XT and processed through Adobe Lightroom 2.0 (Beta)

_mg_1413.jpg

_mg_9028.jpg

_mg_9331.jpg

As a final reminder, it is tax day here in the U.S., so if you haven’t done your taxes yet, today’s your last chance to get them in legally.  If you’re a last minute kind of person, this is pretty much it!  Well, that’s it for Tuesday – happy shooting and watch those apertures! 😉

Sunday/Monday Round-Up

JasonLeave a comment

p_and_p_weekly.jpg

A fellow blogger and photographer, Jason D. Moore, is out on a project this week and asked for some help in writing his weekly P&P (Photoshop & Photography) blogroll which comes out every Monday. With so many interesting and inspirational blogs and resources out there, I could hardly say no, so, this Monday I am happy to fill in for Jason in that regard. Andrew Smith is covering the first half (and is already finished, thereby indicating my slacker status), so be sure to stop over there to see what his half of the round-up includes. Since this took a little time to put together, I obviously had this done before Monday morning, so decided to post here on Sunday to catch the end of the week-end crowd. So, without further ado, on behalf of Jason (and Andrew), here is…

Jason Moore’s Weekly P&P #72:

· Photo Two-Twenty Kinda interesting blurred and shallow focus captures form a track meet. If you’re into abstract works, this is definitely one you should stop on over to see.

· PHOTOBLOG by Jim Larimer has been quiet for the last week or two, but nonetheless, his posts from the last week of March had some very powerful imagery. Worth a stop over just for the creative appeal he has.

· Photoshop Insider – Scott Kelby – Off in Dubai with his brother and good buddy Jeff Revell of PhotoWalk Pro notoriety (see below)

· Photoshop Killer Tips Pretty self explanatory from the title, Matt K. one of the Photoshop Guys gives a tip a day and worth checking out if you want to learn how to commit type, stop an action, clean up your palettes, and decrease file size.

· Photoshop Quicktips Looks like Justin has decided to focus his work efforts elsewhere as this has not seen much activity in a while, but his personal site (http://justinseeley.com) has been pretty regularly active with his sharing of content in the way of thoughts, reviews, and such. May want to update your links to his work accordingly.

· PhotoWalkPro : Jeff Revell joined his good buddy Scott Kelby and Scott’s brother in Dubai for a shoot. Posting some really cool images thus far, so will be one to keep an eye on! (Besides, he’s a devotee of photo walks, which I personally think is one of the best ways to learn, so definitely give the site a visit…

· Richard Vanek – Black and White Photography A quiet week for Richard as he’s been down and out with a bug of some kind. If you’ve never been here before, he’s got some great B&W shots – plus a dry sense of humor (but that’s a good thing!)

· Samuel Barr Photography A small prayer for Sam as he is out from Thursday on bereavement. Judging from past images and diversity fo subject matter, one to keep on your radar though…I love his work he posted Thursday as he made the announcement. Very powerful image!

· SDuffy Photography This weak Shawn shares info on mounting your pictures, some Flickr photo faves, and his own news reports on his “Friday Link Love”. Found a few myself to check out, so stop on over!

· Strobist An authority on lighting, David Hobby this week includes sticks and paint cans for stands, Honl Speed Grids, Reynolds Wrap backgrounds, and much more!

· Terry White’s Tech Blog Terry White’s coverage this week includes a great report on Elinchrom’s wireless peripherals for shooting tethered. Well worth reading!

· The Digital Story Derrick Story’s blog is a new one on me, and I wish I’d known about this sooner. This week’s news includes unlocking raw on P&S cameras and a Stephen Johnson interview via podcast.

· The Global Photographer Andy Biggs was out last week in Botswana and South Africa, so not much recent activity, but bookmark because on his return there should be some spectacular imagery there!

· Visual Realia Okay, yeah, this is Andrew’s so he gets a plug regardless, but Man Alive, he’s got some great floral shots! Great stuff here Andrew! I like how Andrew includes a short poem associated with each image too. Nice touch…

· Watch This Space Like bikes? Then be sure to stop over here as Stephen Waterfall shares his images from Forest City Velodrome where he went last weekend to shoot the race.

· What the Duck I’ve been including WTD comics on the blog for a while – great to keep levity when all around you things are falling to pieces. Always remember to laugh!

· Weekly Photography Tips Scott does a review of Matt K.’s book “Layers” from PSUTV. I’ve always liked Matt’s style, but Scott’s review makes me want to buy a couple copies of this. A good review too.

· What the Heck Journal Martin Andreasen has some interesting photos on his daily photo blog. If you need some creative inspiration or ideas, this is a great place to visit! You can see why he’s got the blog titled this way, and it definitely makes you stop and think…

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

Jason1 Comment

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” →

All over the map…

JasonLeave a comment

Well, I know I am all over the map here, with a couple different tangents going on. I had started things last week with the theme of how to create web galleries using different software platforms, and looking at some written materials for publication. When the Photoshop World keynote and Adobe Labs announced Lightroom 2.0, I felt compelled to download that and give it a quick run through. On noticing that the “dual monitors” isn’t exactly what I had hoped, thought to share my own first look of that as nothing else really showcased how it has to be configured.

Well, today I finally bit the bullet (again) and got Quicktime Pro installed on the macbook. I had done so on my Windows desktop so I could save video files as source files for viewing while off line. Since they did not have a camera and were another OS though, I couldn’t take advantage of the Quicktime Recorder feature…actuallly it’s called Quicktime Broadcaster.

As all that was going on, I had also been doing some test prints through my own R18000, a local print shop (Sam’s Club) and an online printer. To really get a broad range of print types, I chose the metallic inks from Mpix and the results just blew me away. I think I will end up framing this one as it really did turn out better than I had thought. I know, the Photoshop guys talk up Mpix a lot, and I had already known about (and used) them, but these metallic inks are just amazing. Great prices, great results, and speedy delivery…it’s like Newegg is the place for computers, B&H is the place for cameras, NAPP is the place for photography training, and Mpix is now the place for online printing! Gotta love people who know how to do a job and do it really well! Thanks Mpix!

I went ahead and recorded a short quicktime recording to illustrate the Mpix results. It’s kind of hard to tell in this video, and it was really a half-baked idea, but figured why not….it also shows the “real” me which I’ve not done yet. Enjoy! 🙂

Lightroom 2.0 Beta – First look at the dual monitor! (A preview video)

Jason4 Comments

lrsplash.jpg

Just before I hit the sack last night, I saw that Adobe went and released Lightroom 2.0 in its beta form. I’ve already downloaded it and checked out some of the key changes. Until this release, I had used a trial version on my one desktop, and decided I’d tr it for 30 more days just a week or so ago on this main one. Well, right after recording a tutorial on creating web galleries in LR 1.x Adobe goes and does this! I shoulda known better.

The NAPP staff was clearly in on the development as they’ve got a page already set up with a first look on a lot of the key items. Great info and the features are definitely the ones I’d been waiting for – guess it’s time to buy! In my earnest to see everything I noticed though, that Matt K. does not show the dual monitor display on his first look. Was rather disappointed, so….in the interests of showing to others what I just saw, I did a little brief first look of my own. The resolution is super huge (1024×768), and it does look a little “off”. The reason here is because my one monitor is a 19″ and my other one is a 15″. So, on Windows it looks a little funny. But, it does get the gist across for those interested in seeing what’s there for the latest version. Check it out in the Quicktime download attached to this post.

As for the nuts and bolts of changes, I’ll leave those details to the pros over at NAPP and other blogging venues. Some of the more salient and interesting ones I saw today are here:

Only a few wishes…I didn’t immediately see any support for tethered shooting…but I guess that’s could go on a wish request since it’s still in beta. Also, it looks like the second monitor support means just 5 view options: loupe/grid/live loupe/locked loupe/compare/ and survey. I was hoping the 2nd monitor would be customizable with the LR panels (like Photoshop), but I’ve not figured out how to do that yet. If anyone knows whether that is something I am missing, or if it’s not been added…let me know.

Anyway, that’s the big news today – LR 2.0 beta was publicly released during the keynote at Photoshop World! With Photoshop Express, and tons of other R&D stuff coming out of Adobe – it’s a good time to be a fan! SO, without further ado, here’s my first look at LR 2.0 dual monitor setup options! Quicktime only version today (renders faster than the flash version and has wider viewing from those that visit the blog).