After I recorded and started production on this tutorial my mind began to remember that perhaps I had covered this subject before. I reviewed the subjects I have posted over at the Tutorial Resource Center and did not see it covered there, so figure I am not repeating some tutorial I have already done. Having said that, this is kind of a return to the basics. Continue reading “Back to Basics – Rule of Thirds Grid”
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Thanks to David Hobby over at Strobist for posting this on Saturday – apparently I have been missing the boat on videos lately as Google has a pretty extensive video archive of well-known people that they get to come out to the campus in CA and speak for a short while. David posted the YouTube video of Joe McNally (which was posted last Wednesday on YouTube). Normally I guess people speak for about ten minutes or so. Joe McNally’s talk – 1 hour! He naturally talks about The Moment it Clicks, but I walk away amazed every time I hear or read a little more about it. I have to get this book! Some key snippets came out of his conversation there that I took the time to write down and thought I would share these with the blogosphere. Call these “McNallyisms”:
On the big picture:
On motivation
On technique:
Yeah, it’s over an hour long, but it’s worth the listen…it can remind you of what’s really important about photography, and what doesn’t matter as much as you think it does:
And speaking of remembering what’s important, and what really matters versus what doesn’t matter so much, today you simply must stop over at Scott Eccleston’s blog for Weekly Photography Tips. That, my friends, is what really matters! Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed the weekend. Hope the coming week is just as good and keep those cameras clicking – happy shooting!
I am supplanting the weekly tutorial to help get the word out about this impending legislation. It basically allows for the taking of any work “where the creator cannot be found” but has no definition of what due diligence is needed, making it legal for anyone to basically abscond with anything.
There is a renewed fervor to let our politicians know we do NOT want this passed as-is. An excellent link is available here to submit an email to your elected officials and let your voice be heard. All you need is your zip code. As this is an election year – we actually may be listened to for a change! Stop over today and let them know your thoughts:
Link to Congressional Email Petition
To not detract from the importance of this legislation, nothing else for today. Keep on shooting those cameras and take some time to act in your own best interests…and thank the Graphic Artist Guild for compiling the web page for ease of use!
In lieu of a video tutorial today, I’ve recorded an audio podcast. The primary reason for this is because the tip I want to share involves a technique I don’t really have a good sample shot in my library to show you how to apply the technique. So…tune in to this special audio episode for Canon Blogger.
Show notes include information on:
Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
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I was out on a shoot Wednesday and in setting up, I realized I forgot my White Balance card. I always used my WhiBal card to get accurate settings – it’s the cornerstone of my entire workflow! I was sweating bullets…what would I do?
Well, I’d read about white balancing en masse off the eyes, so thought it might work out. But, with the sunny afternoon, pupils were dilated, and kids were squinting, so…I went with the next best thing – their teeth! Turned out to work okay, and I’ve got about 20 shots to share with the mother at work on Monday. In light of my “success” at setting white balance off a subject’s teeth, I thought I’d share that tip with the readership this Friday – take flight in charting new waters – shoot without a white balance card and just use what nature gives you.
Since I’ve not gotten the model releases signed by the mother yet, I can’t make a gallery of images, but I expect to have those on Monday, so stop back in to see the full gallery by then. For some reason I can’t get to WTD so will add my “Friday Funny” later. Alternatively, you can just stop over to www.whattheduck.net to enjoy the humor – I hit it every Friday and read the entire week.
Finally, I’d like to close this week out with a challenge – show me your shots! Let’s see everyone get out there and take pictures. Email me pictures taken from the theme for the week (or email me a link and I can download that way), and I’ll put a montage together here on the blog. With me being a Canon shooter, I figured it would be fun to start with a related theme – RED. So, show me shots with something red – anything you want, and I’ll put a gallery together of all of them and offer some thoughts and feedback on all contributions in a post the following week. So, the dates that I’ll take shots starts today, and will end next Thursday at midnight. Please re-size your shots to 800px on the longest dimension before sending.
Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to get out and shoot this weekend – remember the theme is RED! Happy shooting and watch those apertures! 🙂
Too often we take our work and share it out on the web in galleries, on blogs, and at various community forums to see the background colors don’t really do our shots much justice. I’ve seen forums with blue background colors, others with yellow, and much much more. This has the net effect of casting a hue across every image in that space. Your images take on that hue to a certain degree, and it can often negate an image more than many realize.
Forum administrators and bloggers are starting to realize that neutrals are the best way to go, but there are still some web outlets that hang on to some rather outlandish color schemes. To accommodate the creative (and sometimes sensitive) differences that exist, it can often help to present your images with some digital framing. That is the focus of this weeks’ tutorial, and I share a rather simple but effective technique to create a digital frame to enhance or accentuate and draw attention to your imagery.
As I mention at the end of the post, there are some automated ways to create digital frames via plugins and actions. The one I reference can be found at www.atncentral.com People labor often in anonymity and share their work with the world and give it freely for others to use. Enjoy the benefits of generous folks and for those occasional ones that ask for donations, kick in a buck or two – it always helps to keep the creative spirit alive. In the meantime, keep on shooting (happily), and watch those apertures (carefully)!
Flash Version: Digital Framing
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This week I wrap up the tutorial started last week on creating a Calendar Template using Photoshop. One of the things I found most useful was performing the screen captures of each month prior to beginning the place functions inside Photoshop. As you can see in the tutorial, the results came out really nicely.
This whole project started from wanting to make a single-page calendar and in looking at the design offerings on Mpix, thought “Hey! I could make that!” The second half of the genesis came courtesy of Matt Kloskowski over fro the Photoshop Guys where he did a tutorial a while back on making a desktop calendar for a single month. So…I put the two ideas together and this is the end result of that effort. I figured it may also have some interest for other photographers in making calendars incorporating either their own prints or those of their clients. Clearly, this is a “down and dirty” version, but if anyone is interested, I do have a pretty high resolution sized template that I would be willing to share on request.
In other news, I’d like to give some shout outs to Brian over at Professional Snapshots, who just last Friday celebrated the birth of his new daughter Isabelle! Congrats to Brian, even though this means he has pretty much lost the ability to sleep through a night for at least the next 18-24 months! Yeah, this may be your fourth, but I’ve heard the stories from siblings and neighbors! Enjoy!
Also, don’t forget to stop over at Jason D. Moore’s weekly summary of all things photography! I always head there to make sure I’m not missing anything interesting.
Last, but not least, the tutorial links: Flash first and QT second…
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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!! 🙂
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:
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
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Okay, it’s not really a webinar, it’s a tutorial, but since I usually publish the tuts on Tuesdays, I had to come up with a clever name for the post title, and webinar was the best I could think of…it’s corny, but what the heck.
This week, the final installment of creating web galleries using different applications. Previously, I had looked at how to create web galleries using both Photoshop and Lightroom, and discussed some of the basics involved there, as well as some of the pros and cons of each. In this third and final segment, I look at an open-sourced option called Jalbum. This actually turned out to be a really cool application with some features built in that just made me say “Now hey, that’s cool!” For starters, you can add a comments section for your photos – great if you want to get a dialog going. You can also include a shopping cart and a link to a paypal site for people to not only check off what they want to purchase, but also complete the transaction. Very slick and clever implementation here. I wish the folks at Adobe had thought to incorporate this sort of feature in Lightroom – I can’t imagine a professional photographer not wanting to sell their work, so am wondering why Adobe seems to have missed the boat on this one. Perhaps when LR 2.0 comes out of beta, this will be an incorporated feature. (Is anyone at Adobe watching?)
After watching the video, you should bounce back here to the blog, so please feel free to share your comments on the video. Did you like it? Was there anything I missed that you would like to see? Too much material, not enough? Did I talk too fast? Let me know if you have software or applications you would like to see featured as I can usually find a trial version or something to go over some of the basics. Comments section or email, as always are encouraged. We’ve also only got two weeks left in the camera quantity poll, so don’t forget to vote!
Anyway, enough teasing and hinting of what’s to come…I bid you adieu and happy shooting until next week as I give you the full tutorial on creating web galleries with JAlbum! (don’t forget to watch those apertures…)
View Jalbum tutorial online (flash-based)
