You’d think with toting camera bags chock full of bodies, lenses, field drives, lighting equipment, filters, tripods, monopods, and batteries would be enough to give anyone a workout who carries it all day. It is a lot of stuff to carry, and you can certainly accredit some cardio to this activity, but there’s other ways to work out as a photographer. Today, I give you:
5 Photography Exercises Continue reading “The Photographer’s Workout”
Being in Colorado, I am always one of the first to read the latest blogs for the day because East Coasters usually set their publish time to somewhere between midnight and 2am, which means between 10pm and midnight my time, I can catch up on all the news that is going to hit in the morning. (California folks got me beat by an hour…)
So, when Scott Kelby’s blog went live a while ago, he was encouraging people to join the Kelby Training website with a video teaser compiled by his chief video guru, Jason Scrivner. It’s a pretty funny video teaser, but did pique my interest enough to stop over and see how much time was involved in the new video.
On this week’s show, we’ve got a lot to talk about including a couple of particular news stories to note, with a little insight from the crew, we’ll be taking your questions and answers on the show and the special guest of the week for this show is none other than the well-reknowned Martin Bailey!
Photo News
Martin Bailey
- Workshops
- Development/Inspiration
Links: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/
Blog: http://blog.martinbaileyphotography.com/
Podcast: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/podcasts.php
Workshops: http://www.mbpworkshops.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MartinBailey
Folio: Martin Baily Photography
Q&A
Martin was also kind enough to share a sample selection of his portfolio with us here on the show. These are the low res versions, to see things super nice, head on over to his folio link provided above. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, the show, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the latest in photography reviews!
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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! 🙂
With the sudden surge and swell in the blogosphere, Twittersphere and Photosphere over Lightroom 3 hitting the streets (and a nice combo discount is available in the sidebar by the way), let’s not forget that this software is all meant to be doing one thing – letting us get back to the business of taking photos instead of spending our time in our computer.
With that in mind, I’m bringing back a popular concept of “Top Tips”. Today, I give you…(drum roll please):
“Five Tips to Better Photos”
There you have it – 5 easy tips to better photos! Lightroom? We don’t need no stinkin’ Lightroom! (Well, we do, but it made for a good quote! 🙂 )
What sorts of tips have you come up with to make and take better photos in camera? Share your own in the comments! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
P.S. Remember, there are two contests going on right now – if you stop over to the podcast day (Monday) where I talked with Rob Sylvan and share a comment you are entered to win a free copy of his upcoming “Taking Stock” book – courtesy of Peachpit Press. Also, the monthly giveaway for 2 4GB Lexar Pro 300x CF cards is rolling and you can submit your photos to the Flickr thread here! Enjoy and good luck to all!
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)”
In the course of pursuing creative inspiration, I’ve often found that just picking a subject and sticking with it can be a good exercise in creativity. Taking something and focusing (no pun intended) on that subject and only that subject can help you see things differently. The exercise is good whether your subject is flowers, thumb drives, coffee mugs (which I’ve done in the past), or in this case – tail lights!
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As you can tell, some of the shots are pretty cool, others – well, not so much. Some are out of focus, some are boring, but a few just pop and stand out. Also note that I’ve not done any post processing of these. I just imported into Lightroom 3, re-sized for export uniformity, and boom! – done. While I grant you it’s not always showcasing the “best of the best” of your work, it’s is important though not to eliminate shots from the project, at least initially…because these “throwaways” can help you identify what works and what doesn’t work. What makes certain shots stand out and why? These are all things to look at when doing little mini projects like this. So, pick a subject and fire away! Feel free to share your own thoughts on what works and what doesn’t in the comments, and hopefully this will help kick-start some other projects! Happy shooting all and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
The May pool of photos that everyone contributed to was quite stunning – the listening and reading audience is quite a talented group and some of the images on here were really incredible. Full of vibrance, vision, color and passion – it was really hard to narrow things down – but I give you here just a few from the wonderful month of May. There really is no better way to say it than: Continue reading “May We Salute You”
As mentioned yesterday, the example self-portrait I took had some misleading EXIF data. The thrust of the post was that EXIF data isn’t always right, and if you read through the comments, you’ll find out most of what was wrong (this is one sharp reading audience – y’all don’t miss a beat! 🙂 ).
What was most glaring though was that the radio trigger didn’t report itself to the EXIF data. I’d noticed this in the past from the Cactus triggers when I first purchased them. It could be due to the economical nature of the cirtuitry (i.e. they weren’t very expensive). Or it could be due to the very nature of the devices themselves. I’m not sure as I’ve not had a chance yet to test the heftier devices like Radio Poppers, Cybersyncs, and of course, the mecca Pocketwizards!
Here’s the part where the reading audience is more than welcome to chime in! Do you own any of the above devices? If so, which ones? And of course, do they report to the EXIF data in your photos? Last, but not least – how regularly do they report? Because one of the things that is very useful in reproducing images (the very mark of a professional) is looking at flash data from one shot so you can repeat those settings again if needed. So, in this vein, I am not happy with the Cactus Infinity triggers. Yes, I got what I paid for, and they work well enough for their purpose…but I feel I am starting to outgrow them even more. Guess it’s time to pony up, eh? Only question is – to what?
Already, some questions are coming in about what kind of lighting was used, what the lighting EXIF was, and several have also asked about the background – some things I had a feeling would come up, so thanks to all sending in email asking for more details…much more is coming! I promise!
In the meantime, take a break (or a photo) and enjoy the weekend. For those of us in the U.S., remember, Memorial Day isn’t just a day of baseball, hot dogs and beer – it’s also a day to remember the fallen heroes that died defending our country…
We all talk about tags, and flags and meta data whenever we are importing our photos into Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever program you use. While there are discussions ad infinitum about the value of adding extra tags to your photos like “2010” or “Canon” or “family vacation” or whatever labels you like, there is an underlying set of “fixed” data that contains HUGE amounts of information about your picture, and that is the EXIF data. Continue reading “Can you trust your meta data?”
