22 Photo New Year’s Resolutions for 2009

Every year most people I know - myself included - make those ever so useful New Year’s Resolutions. I think I’ve only ever followed through with one or two in my life!

Photojojo has a great little article titled 22 Photo New Year’s Resolutions for 2009. There’s quite a few good ones:

Get Organized
1. Weed out the chaff
2. Clean up your act
3. Back up!

Show Off
4. Put more photos up
5. Make a book
6. Enter some contests
7. Share your pictures online

Try Something New
8. Use a new technique
9. Switch teams
10. Borrow some new gear
11. Get a different perspective

Do Some Good
12. Donate your old gear
13. Volunteer your talents
14. Teach somebody what you know

Challenge Yourself
15. Go on assignment
16. Do something difficult
17. Brush up on your history

Start a Project
18. Start a year-long project
19. Pick a new project every month
20. Start a new tradition
21. Make a time capsule

Take your camera everywhere
22. Take your camera everywhere

My biggest thing that I need to do is to get organized and get things up and running including revamping this site and setting up a portfolio/sales site. I’m going to be ambitious and see how many of these I can hit this year. I think my first “year long project” will be the new 100 Possibilities Project on Flickr - 100 photos of the same item. It can’t be that hard to take 100 different photos of a laptop can it?

I’ll keep you all posted on the rest!

Tags: flickr, laptop, photography, Photojojo, resolution

Canon 5D Mark II

Yes I was a very good boy this year and ended up getting a Canon 5D Mark II with the 24-105 f/4L kit lens! I haven’t had a ton of time to play with it yet, only a couple hundred shots, but it’s definitely an improvement over the XTi… I’m impressed with it, and the quality of the video from it as well. Hope to get more up soon - and back to regular posting, it’s been far too long!

Tags: 5d, 5d mark ii, camera, canon, me, mirror, reflection, self-portrait

Spy vs. Spy!

Make no mistake about it, I love photography - hence this blog and my recent attempts to step things up and try to take this to a new level. One of the things I also like doing is playing around with Photoshop, and seeing what I can do - and others can do - to photos I have taken.

A short time ago, a new group called Duets was formed. The goal was for two Flickr individuals to combine separate photos into a diptych. A short while after, cre8iveaddiction asked if I would consider doing one with her. One thing led to another and we bring you Spy vs. Spy Duets!

Here’s our first entry…

Tags: collaboration, cre8iveaddiction, duet, selective color, Selective Colour, sin city, spy vs spy, textured

Canon EOS 50D

Yup, Canon officially announced the release of the Canon 50D, the successor to the wildly popular 40D. The basic specs are as follows:

• 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor
• DIGIC 4 image processor
• 6.3 frames per second
• ISO 100-12800
• 3″ 920,000 dot/VGA resolution rear display
• 9 cross-type AF sensors

Not only that, it has added two sRAW modes for more compact RAW files, and lets you shoot RAW in the preset/basic modes. At the sRAW1 setting, resolution is 7.1 megapixels with a file size that is approximately 25 percent smaller than a standard 15.1 megapixel RAW image. With the sRAW2 setting, resolution is 3.8 megapixels at less than half the file size of a standard RAW image, retaining all of the flexibility and creative possibilities associated with full-size, conventional RAW images. The EOS 50D is the first Canon Digital SLR that allows the use of RAW and sRAW settings in Basic Zone as well as Creative Zone shooting modes, even further improving the camera’s flexibility.

Doesn’t seem too bad of a deal, the Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR camera is scheduled for October delivery and will be sold in a body-only configuration at an estimated selling price of $1,399.00USD. It will additionally be offered in a kit version with Canon’s EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM zoom lens at an estimated selling price of $1,599.00USD.

Also available in October is a new EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom lens, expected to retail for around $699.00USD. Sounds like a good all around general purpose lens!

My only question is… where the heck is the replacement for the 5D???

Read the official press release from Canon here.

Tags: 50D, camera, canon, eos, hardware

PhotoCalc for iPhone

I snagged a copy of PhotoCalc for the iphone and I must say that I am very impressed. It has screens for calculating exposure reciprocation, depth of field, and flash exposure based your camera model and the available light - I’m assuming calculated from the iPhone camera. It also includes a pretty decent reference manual which includes a beefy glossary and reference on the zone system, sunny 16 rule, films, and filters. Oh, did I mention sunrise, high noon, and sunrise times based on your physical location? Check out PhotoCalc at http://www.adairsystems.com/photocalc/.

Tags: application, iphone, Software

Shooting with available light

Catching up on some older posts I’ve been meaning to reference here. The first is a wonderful post over at DPS on Shooting with available light.

Sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? In fact, shooting available light frees you from all the encumbrances of dragging strobe equipment around with its stands, modifiers, strobes and possibly even power packs. On the other hand, shooting available light chains you to whatever the light is willing to do at a given time of day. So you see now how it can free you or chain you up. There are a few tips and techniques you can use to tame available light and bend it to your will in many circumstances. Best of all, you don’t have to purchase a thing to use this technique.

I’ve shot with available light a lot, I really do enjoy it, especially playing with the manual settings to get the exact look that I am going for.

Check out the How To Shoot With Available Light post over at the DPS Blog.

Tags: available light, DPS, light, Tips

First wedding shoot…

Ashley and Matty came over yesterday afternoon to have a look at the pictures I took at their wedding. They were both very happy with them (they sent a quick email this morning to tell me again), so in turn that made me pleased that I had done a great job in capturing their special day for them.

All in all, it was a great experience, I know I swore I’d never do a wedding, but I’m glad I took the jump. The experience was definitely made more rewarding watching Ashley and Matty go through the pictures and just listening to the comments and the additional memories it brought back - not to mention being able to capture things they hadn’t thought of as needing to be captured. I’ll be slowly uploading them over the next few days, these are two of my favorites, it was a tough call though.

I’ll also write up another post in the next couple days going into a little more detail about the shoot, how many images I took and whittled down to, and some other interesting tidbits.

Tags: ashley, bride, groom, husband, matty, wedding, wife

Simon Blint, Director of Visitor Relations at the SF MOMA, Yeah You A**hole, Photography is Not a Crime

Looks like Thomas Hawk had a little run in at SF MOMA. Nice picture though!

Recently I blogged about my excitement regarding the San Francisco MOMA’s decision to begin allowing photography in their permanent collection after years of maintaining a closed no photography policy. Directly because of this change in policy, I decided to purchase a family membership in order to support the museum, both with my artistic energy and financially. I was excited to begin spending regular time exploring and documenting the museum.

Unfortunately, I should have known better than to really believe that the San Francisco MOMA was serious about opening up the art and architecture entrusted to them to the general public.

It’s sad really that a photographer and artist following the museums own policy gets ejected from the museum.

This part did make me laugh though - shows you what people DON’T know, or care to find out.

He accused me of using a “telephoto” lens to spy on his staff from the public staircase on the second floor. Blint obviously knows nothing of photography because the 14mm ultra wide angle lens on my camera body was about the furthest thing possible from a telephoto lens.

Reminds me a bit of my own experiences… recently I took my DSLR to the swimming pool to photograph my wife and my daughter in one swimming class and my son in another. I got a few odd looks - granted it is a swimming pool - but I noticed quite a few people with point and shoots who didn’t even get a second glance… can’t wait to go back with a 5D and 70-200 f/2.8L and see what happens ;)

Be sure to read Thomas’ post and digg it as well!

Tags: moma, photography, rights, san francisco, sf, sfmoma, simon blint, thomas hawk

Portrait Photography’s Power Posing - Part II: The Poses

DPS posted the sequel to Portrait Photography’s Power Posing Part I: The Components that I blogged about a little over a week ago.

The post talks about three power poses and how to achieve them:

1. Standing Tall: Give an air of confident ability and self-assurance.
2. Casual Seated: Express an easygoing attitude
3. The Wall Chill: Describes natural and casual expression

Check out the Portrait Photography’s Power Posing - Part II: The Poses post by Christina Nichole over at the DPS blog!

Tags: chirstina nichole, DPS, Portrait, posing

Maternity shoot

As if I wasn’t busy enough! My sister-in-law came in from out of town for the night so we did a quick shoot. The image below is my favorite of the night I think, I just can’t decide between the three color variations I did.

All in all, I’m pleased with the processed results, have a few more to go through yet but first I have to finish this wedding processing! She was super pleased as well, and one of her friends already wants me to do her maternity shoot and another of her friends wants to talk about family portraits. Looks like things might be getting underway… now to get real studio lighting - believe it or not this was just lit with a 430EX Speedlight on camera.

Tags: Maternity, Portrait, pregnant, processed