Tag: Thinktank

Photo Framing Follow-up

Jason1 Comment

After the blog post on Wednesday, and the number of comments received, I thought that the next podcast would be well served to discuss the idea behind matting and framing in more detail.  As luck would have it, that podcast just went live earlier this afternoon!  You can catch the podcast over at the Personal Life Media site here: Learning Digital Photography

Here’s the Show Notes:

In this latest episode of Learning Digital Photography, the Grand Prize winner from the September $500 giveaway is announced, and the October contest opens up – ready for your entries.  The theme this time is Fall (open to interpretation).  Specs, guidelines, and such are discussed including dimensions, dates for submission and more.

Also in this episode, a primer on framing your photos:  things to look for and avoid when matting and framing work.  I look at what gallery and show fine art venues usually require versus home or personal use.

Finally, the popular listener question and answer segment returns, with some great ones coming from all over the globe!  Download today!  Happy shooting!

The links mentioned in the show follow as well:

Rich Charpentier’s Website and Blog

Flickr Contest Thread

Redimat

American Framing

Don’t forget, every time you “Digg” the podcast over at PLM, or subscribe and write a review on iTunes , you are helping others enjoy the fun and thrill of photography.  Feel free to also use those venues as well as the comments here and contact with me via email if you have an idea or thought to share about the show.  Thanks, as always, for listening and reading.  Have a great weekend, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back again on Monday!

Grab the Feed
Follow me on Twitter

Taking it to the next level!

Jason5 Comments

Writing, writing everywhere

We all have aspirations of taking our work to “the next level”.  How we define our “levels” of success is largely a personal matter.  Here I am always happy to share my aspirations and goals with the larger community.  It is likely no secret that as a blogger, the written word is an enjoyable “tool” for me.  In writing both blog posts here, and articles for the PhotographyBB magazine (and special shout outs and thanks to Dave Seeram, editor-in-chief of said magazine), it has become pretty clear that writing for blogs and writing for magazines requires different approaches.  To that end, there is some content on the blog that has never been incorporated into any magazine.  Likewise, some magazine content has never seen the light of the blogosphere.  Well, that convergence begins today, courtesy of my good friend, Eizabeth Gast (a.k.a. “Firgs” of Design by Firgs).

In looking at her work online with her own blog, and her social presence as well, I thought she might enjoy reading an article I wrote for the magazine.  Well, she has helped with editing, and it now also has a great blog form to it as well.  Since she was so instrumental in its transition from magazine to blog, I offered it up to her for use if she liked – needless to say, I think she liked it enough because it’s on her blog today!  Thanks Firgs!  You are the best!  If you want to read more about the importance of how social networking can play into photography – stop over and read her blog.  Heck, stop over anyway and tell her thanks for me! 🙂

The Comment Contest Winner

In other news, the Comments Contest was a huge success!  With only one repeat and one tweeted link, the count totaled 15, matching the highest total ever received for a single post!  After taking out the repeat and the tweet, lucky #13 is the number I plugged in over at www.Random.org (another link I picked up from Firgs!).  Wit the Random Number Generator (drumroll please…) the winner in the Comments Contest is – believe it or not, lucky #13!  That winner is is andie! So, Andie, if you could drop me an email, you are the lucky winner of a $25 gift card to B&H Photo!

The “Win a Wacom” Giveaway

Submissions for this giveaway are now closed.  Over the next few days I will be going through all the entries and winnowing out the best of the best and choosing a winner!  Be sure to tune in as we move toward Friday!

The Super September Giveaway

Remember the Topaz Labs software I mentioned yesterday?  And the Thinktank Photo Multimedia Bag System? Yup, it’s now time and they are up for grabs in the latest and greatest giveaway over on the Flickr page.  A new thread has been created (yes, a little ahead of schedule), so feel free to start putting your work in there.  The direct link to that thread is here.  The theme is Think in Color, so I am sure a rainbow will appear in short order, with lots of creativity!

I was going to do a write-up of some more plugins from the Topaz Suite, but time and space just got away from me, so if you wanna see more about this great plugin set, be sure to stop back in tomorrow as I promise to have that review together for your reading enjoyment.  On that note, have a rockin’ day and happy shooting!

Contests and Giveaway News

Jason3 Comments

Lots to cover today, so rather than banter, let’s get to the news about all the contest stuff going on:

The Comment Contest

Talk about a huge success – had enough feedback and ideas in this one post to really get some great creative ideas in play for the coming months for the blog – after the re-design!  Some lucky winner will be announced tomorrow (I am writing this on Sunday, while comments are still being accepted, so a winner cannot be announced right now.)

Win a Wacom Giveaway

The Learning Digital Photography giveaway thread over on Flickr has seen quite an uptick in submissions in the last week.  As the deadline approached, more people started getting their “fun” themed shots in, and there’s a lot of creative and fun photos in there.  It’s going to be tough to decide this one for sure.  Have you got your image submissions in yet?  If not, today is the last day to enter, and like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play!  You have until midnight tonight (Mountain Time), so it’s now or never!

The September Giveaway – Think in Color!

Announced briefly and teased on post #500, September’s contest is a pretty big one.  Two significant items are up for grabs this month.  First up, the winner of this contest will receive a Think Tank Multimedia Bag System (5 bags total).  For more information on this latest bag system to hit the shelves from ThinkTank Photo, you can read the review I did here, or visit their website for the specifics here.  The retail value of this set of bags is easily $350!

Second, Topaz Labs has offered up their plugin suite of actions for Photoshop to the winner of the September giveaway.  You may recall my review of the Topaz Labs Adjustment plugin here on the blog, and more of the Topaz plugins will be reviewed here during September, so stay tuned to see all the cool stuff this set can do.  The retail value of this software set is valued at $150 for the Adjustment, Denoise, Simplify, Detail, Clean and DeJPEG plugins.

So, let’s see – $350 in bags, and $150 in software = $500 in giveaway items for the September run.  That’s a lotta loot!  This means the setup will be a little more competitive than last months.  Here’s a rundown of the guidelines:

  1. Longest side of the image should be between 600-800pixels.  This makes for consistency in galleries, and also for equal view-ability in the judging phase.
  2. One photo per person, submitted through the Flickr thread, which will be created tonight at midnight.
  3. Photos must be taken within 30 days of the contest start date.  So, if you have something you took just last month, that is acceptable, but earlier archives will not be accepted.
  4. All images must be work-safe/family-friendly.
  5. This go around, the theme is:  Think in Colors (for ThinkTank and the color Topaz).  Incorporate the theme of the giveaway somehow into your photos.
  6. Since we’re talking Photoshop and plugins, it makes sense to also note that image editing is permitted, so go ahead and punish those pixels!
  7. Image submissions will be accepted starting September 1st, and will continue through Sat. Sept. 26th.

The other cool thing about the Thinktank/Topaz Labs giveaway is that the folks at Topaz Labs have offered to the winner that their photo be displayed on Topaz Labs website (along with photo credit given, naturally).  This is, of course, totally optional, but definitely a cool feather to have in ones’ cap.  The caveat here is that the submitting photographer would have to be at least 18 years old.

Phew – that is a lot of contest news!  In one sidenote about the blog, a little administrative note that the B&H Photo affiliate link is back, so if you are thinking of purchasing some gear through B&H, if you use the link above, though your price stays the same, B&H will send a few cents back this way to help offset the expense of hosting.  (It literally is just a few cents per purchase, so go ahead and spend a fortune!) 🙂  So much for a hardware review today…I’ll be back tomorrow with the last post for August, and the announcement of the Comment Contest winner!  In the meantime, happy shooting!

Grab the Feed