Ramblings
November 26, 2007
Wireless Memory Card
Wow, this looks pretty cool: the Eye-Fi wireless memory card is a 2GB SD card that makes your digital camera wireless. After setting it up, "whenever your cameras near the wireless network you selected and idle, Eye-fi will upload all your photos to your online photo sharing service. Next time your computer's online, they'll download there, too!"
Labels: photography
October 24, 2007
People and Their Breakfast
Strangely interesting and almost hypnotic: a photo series of people and their breakfasts. Not exactly breakfasts of champions for some. And what's with the guy who has coffee and two mini Reese's peanut butter cups? (via kottke)
Labels: photography
October 15, 2007
The Best Deal in Photography
Daring Fireball has recently been on a tear singing (and linking to) the praises of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, and I couldn't agree more. For about $80 ("the best deal in photography") you get a great lens -- though with less-than-great construction -- that is a lot of fun to use and a great learning tool. I find it especially good for portrait photos (some of my shots with that lens are here). I recently convinced photo friend Hollister to get one, and she'll back me up on it.
Labels: photography
September 11, 2007
April 11, 2007
Snipshot
This is very cool: Snipshot is a website that is essentially a very basic photo editor (think Photoshop Elements Extra-Lite). You can edit a photo from your computer or a website and resize, crop, and adjust brightness/contrast/saturation/sharpness to your liking, then save it. It even allows for undos. If you need to do basic photo editing and don't have the software to do it, check it out.
Labels: photography
March 14, 2007
Get Out and Shoot!
I'm trying to get in gear to take more photos and get to the point where I feel like I'm actually a good photographer and not just a competent one. (Of course, that time will probably never come, so I should just try to get to the point where I can shoot photos that I'm satisfied with.)
I need to just shoot more often, but part of my problem is my "fear" of taking photos: I often feel that if a shot isn't going to be great, I shouldn't bother taking it at all. (Not too long ago I could make an argument that I didn't want to waste film...of course I can't use that excuse any more.)
Photographer Paul Butzi has an article on his site, Ability, Accomplishment, and Art that was useful to me, and hopefully will inspire me to just shoot, regardless of whether the shot will be a "keeper." He mentions a book ("Art and Fear") that he paraphrases:
Related: Note to self, look into the Greater Brockton Camera Club sometime.
I need to just shoot more often, but part of my problem is my "fear" of taking photos: I often feel that if a shot isn't going to be great, I shouldn't bother taking it at all. (Not too long ago I could make an argument that I didn't want to waste film...of course I can't use that excuse any more.)
Photographer Paul Butzi has an article on his site, Ability, Accomplishment, and Art that was useful to me, and hopefully will inspire me to just shoot, regardless of whether the shot will be a "keeper." He mentions a book ("Art and Fear") that he paraphrases:
99% of the art you make will fall short of what you hoped for, and the purpose, the function of that 99% is to enable you to make the 1% that soars and actually exceeds your hopes and expectations.The article also contains a good anecdote about pottery class students, and ends with: "we need to let go of the quest for quality, and focus on making the art that's genuinely ours, and trust that the quality will take care of itself."
Related: Note to self, look into the Greater Brockton Camera Club sometime.
Labels: photography
March 6, 2007
Hollister Thomas Photography
A new site I built is now live: Hollister Thomas Photography. The original designer sort of disappeared so I took his initial rough design, finished the details, and built the site. It was a lot of fun to do, especially adding the Lightbox 2.0 slideshow and the page load/fade-in code (which I needed to do because of the way the content is centered on the page). And Hollister's photos are great, too!
Labels: design, personal, photography
August 29, 2006
Flickr Geotags
Flickr has added a pretty cool feature to their site: geotags let you can point out on a map exactly where you took a photo. (FlickrBlog has all the details.)
For example, take my photo of the Zakim Bridge: Under "Additional Information" in the right part of the page it says "Taken in East Cambridge, Massachusetts" and clicking the "map" link shows you where I shot it (from the Museum of Science). You can also explore photos other people have taken near that photo to see what other people shot.
This might get kind of messy (and possibly unusable) for very popular sites -- especially touristy destinations -- but might be fun for less popular locations and/or your hometown.
For example, take my photo of the Zakim Bridge: Under "Additional Information" in the right part of the page it says "Taken in East Cambridge, Massachusetts" and clicking the "map" link shows you where I shot it (from the Museum of Science). You can also explore photos other people have taken near that photo to see what other people shot.
This might get kind of messy (and possibly unusable) for very popular sites -- especially touristy destinations -- but might be fun for less popular locations and/or your hometown.
Labels: photography
July 23, 2006
June 9, 2006
Modestly Competent Photography
How to Shoot People (and Places and Things)
The first two [photos] I showed in class this evening ... were technically passable but artistically bland. More than anything, they’re examples of my modest competency in selective focus and the one-third/two-thirds rule for composing pictures, but little else. The more I learn about photography, the less interested I am in close-ups that fetishize surface textures, and the less impressed I am by well composed but basically inert subjects that don’t communicate a narrative of any particular stripe.The "modest competency" comment really describes how I feel about my photos. Sure, some are well-composed and nice to look at, but they don't really say anything. I just need to practice and explore more..
Labels: photography
February 15, 2006
Picasa: iPhoto for Windows
If you use a Mac and shoot digital photos, you should be using Apple iPhoto to manage them. But my mom -- who, for reasons unknown (despite numerous major problems with Windows over the years) -- has yet to switch to a Mac. Since she asked for help backing up her photos, I needed to find a Windows iPhoto-equivalent...which I assumed didn't exist.
Well, for the most part, it does: Google Picasa is a very cool, simple, and free (!) digital photo management tool for Windows (there's no Mac version). It organizes your photos, has basic editing tools (cropping, red eye removal, lighting & color effects), and makes it easy to email pictures, order prints, and burn CDs. Since it's free and owned by Google, it's definitely worth checking out.
Well, for the most part, it does: Google Picasa is a very cool, simple, and free (!) digital photo management tool for Windows (there's no Mac version). It organizes your photos, has basic editing tools (cropping, red eye removal, lighting & color effects), and makes it easy to email pictures, order prints, and burn CDs. Since it's free and owned by Google, it's definitely worth checking out.
Labels: photography
October 12, 2005
Printing photos at home
Why Do-It-Yourself Photo Printing Doesn't Add Up (NY Times)
Despite the ceaseless efforts of manufacturers to convince consumers that printing at home is fast, convenient and a whole lot of fun, the evidence shows that many people are tuning out the marketing.I have to say, I gave up printing photos at home last year. I bought a Canon i950 photo printer early last year (or was it 2003?) and really liked it for a while. But soon I got sick of color correcting, fading photos, and replacing ink. Now I just order my prints right from iPhoto and my life is easier and our photo album looks better. So if you're interested in a slightly used i950 printer, let me know...
Labels: photography
March 15, 2005
Zoo photos
Sure, I've taken a few zoo photos before, but those suck compared to these -- flamingo & peacock.
Labels: photography, photos
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