December 2010
26 posts
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Obligatory Look Back at 2010
Every person has a certain year ingrained in their mind that sticks out more than others and as it is a habit for one to reflect back on one that’s coming to an end, I feel compelled to write down a small reflection on 2010.
About Life
Although we got married in 2009, the most gratifying of experiences in my life has been coming home to my wife. Without sounding too melodramatic, the...
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Loving Me Some Instagram
Unlike the countless photo apps I’ve experimented with, Instagram has by far been the one I’ve developed a complete social media obsession. Some would say it’s just another photographing and filtering software but like Clive Thompson noted, “there’s something weirdly hypnotic about following the lives of your friends through nothing but images.”
What holds...
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Timelapse Presets for Lightroom →
I have all the gear needed to create a timelapse with my D90 including an intervalometer but I haven’t set aside the time to actually produce one yet. Zach Wise put together an amazing tutorial on merging all the photographs you took for your timelapse by using QuickTime Pro but if you own LR, you might want to give these presets a try instead.
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Quick Hints on Lightroom Keywords
Keywording photographs in Lightroom for me is a 2 step process. Any caption or keywords added during import are quite general. For example, during our mediterranean honeymoon cruise, the keyword list for all the photographs imported were: Europe, Vacation, 2009, Cruise, Honeymoon. Once I got to editing photos from either Venice or Rome, that’s when I added specific information about each...
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Basic Photography Concepts with Penn State →
A multimedia developer from Penn State wanted to create something that conveyed the basics of photography. He was looking for a way to show what happens when you change camera settings. Despite the amateurish Flash animation, I assure you it’s the information in it that holds value. The animation “simulates how you would make adjustments on a real camera while seeing what happens to...
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Overcoming The Fear of Photographing Strangers
Being comfortable in photographing people is at the top of my list for 2011. I’m not talking about holding up a camera towards people you already know or the typical “shoot and run” approach we have when we’re out on the streets. I think photography is a means by which we can get to know people but how often do we connect with them before hitting the shutter button.
More...
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The Purpose to Travel
This might come as a late reaction but as I sat back one evening enjoying a warm cup of coffee and looking over some of my photographs, I realized that I love to travel. What sweetens this craze is having a wife that equally enjoys these same enlightening experiences, the meeting of inspirational people and the sure feeling that we’ll learn and grow as a person with each trip.
As a...
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Radbox: The Instapaper of Video →
At work I don’t have the luxury of slacking off and reading everything published on Twitter or from the 85 RSS feeds I subscribe. At least not as quickly as I would want to. For articles, Instapaper’s success has been due for the ease in which they can be saved to read later but I knew nothing of a straightforward equivalent service that did the same for video.
My addiction for...
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Creating iPad Albums with Lightroom 2 →
I use Lightroom exclusively to manage all of my photographs and the reason for ever launching iPhoto is to import them onto the iPad or iPhone. It was an often replicated process that I wasn’t too fond of but one I dealt with because I haven’t updated to Lightroom 3 yet. In LR3, you can use the Publish Services feature to do the same type of syncing for you.
But if you still have...
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Making Quality Connections
I’m mindful that if I were to devote myself to strictly writing about the technical side of photography, I would perhaps reach a much wider audience but my intention with this online space has never been to try to replicate better material than what’s already out there.
I would say I’m more of a storyteller and like to focus on the personal experiences through my writing and...
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“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less...”
– David Bailey, British photographer. Have you ever been with someone else photographing and when you show each other what you’ve captured, that one person would say “Hey, how come I didn’t see that?” I personally get it all the time when I’m out shooting with friends who...
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Add a Dog Tag to Your Camera
Without sounding too cynical, I can’t imagine a complete stranger safely returning an expensive piece of equipment like a dSLR if you accidently left it behind. Not to say there are no more honorable people left in the world but for those few that would have intentions of contacting the owner, how would they even know who to reach?
After reading about this neat idea of dog-tagging your...
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You're a photographer when... →
I’m a member of the Nikon D90 Group on Flickr and there’s was a thread started where subcribers were asked to respond to the statement “you are a photographer when…” There’s 2 pages worth of responses so far and I selected my favorite 10. What makes these special is that are very easily applicable to me and you’ll find yourself smiling because you’ll see yourself in them as...
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Tourist in my Neighborhood of Brooklyn
As expected around the holidays, the weather in New York has dropped tremendously that you’re likely to see the multitude of people walking faster than usual on the streets. I’ll admit the coldness can be discouraging when it comes to photographing but it certainly shouldn’t be an excuse. I took my advice today and hit the streets as a tourist in my neighborhood.
Telephoto...
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The Christmas Print Exchange →
In case you’re unaware of who Eric Kim is, he expresses his love towards street photography on his site with very informative articles and inspirational tips. His blog has gained much well deserved popularity that one day a project coordinator from Beirut, Lebanon reached out to him to see if he was interested in leading a street photography workshop there.
Very amazing opportunity to say...
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Ann Curry Talks Passion & Photography →
The general perception of a few celebrities or TV personalities is that their minds are largely just consumed with fame, money and some form of addiction because that’s all we really see and read about. But they are people just like us and while they’ve made a name for themselves base on their work, that doesn’t imply they have no other interest from which they obtain enthusiasm...
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“The true value of your photography isn’t the price of the paper it’s printed on....”
– Brilliant article from a new photography website I discovered called Virtual Photography Studio. I would unquestionably overwhelm myself if I chose to Instapaper every article on the site but the fact that I even considered it is a testament that their content is worth meticulously reading through...
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What Photography Teaches You About Writing →
The money quote for me in this article is:
A photograph may be wordless, but it will still speak to the viewer if the photographer knows what he’s looking for. In writing, you may have a 500-page novel but you still need to be able to sum it up in a line or two. If you can’t do that, you don’t know what your story is about.
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Flickr Groups & Software
It’s become a standard in that if you want to share you photographs with the rest of the world, then you are to publish them on Flickr. It’s a debatable topic but as far as staying involve with the community, I keep up to date with any activity by visiting the actual site and not really utilizing any of the popular desktop clients for the Mac such as 1001, Flickery or Socialite. The...
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Idea Cafe: Jorge Quinteros →
Idea Cafe is the product child of Chris Bowler who is one of the founders of Fusion Ads Network. The purpose of the site is to provide a friendly, easy to use experience for finding and purchasing high-quality notebooks, notepads, sketchpads and whatever other creativity-inspiring products.
Recently he introduced a new type of product to Idea Cafe: Prints. Each month a new artist is featured...