flickr Fave of the Day : If only you were here…

Originally uploaded by M.Gruber

I must say, I’ve been following M.Gruber’s stream for quite some time now, and he continues to amaze! Having completed the first year of a 365 days of self portraits projects, he’s trundled on to a Year Two and is continuing to raise the bar!

Great shots the last couple days man - keep up the great work!

Tags: fave of the day, flickr, m.gruber, matt

The Flickr Collection on Getty Images

Interesting post on the Flickr blog yesterday… sounds like they are teaming up with the Getty Images stock photography site to promote Flickr users photos and hopefully make it easier for Flickrites to get there images up on Getty.

Team Flickr has long wanted to create a way to make it easier for those who use photos in the digital publishing industry to do so in a way that respects the talent and rights of our members.

The great folks at Flickr and Getty Images are joining forces to build a platform that will enable the creation of a first class collection of royalty free, rights ready, and rights managed photographs that will debut later this year.

Maybe they can use some more stock golf images? Supposedly coming later this year. Should prove interesting. I sure hope they don’t use the Magic Donkey to determine what is Getty Images worthy!

Tags: flickr, foot, getty, golf, grass, images, partnership, photography, stock

Portfolio Updated!

Just a FYI, updated the images on the portfolio page.

As always, you can view the rest of my portfolio and images over at Flickr.

Tags: flickr, pixelens, portfolio, update

Alberta Railway Museum

Headed out to the Alberta Railway Museum in town, didn’t even know it existed! Went with a few flickr friends on Saturday (Bill, Adam, and Amanda), that place was a gold mine - I’ll definitely have to go back.

Be sure to visit the rest of the set, I’ll be uploading from amongst the 375 odd keepers that I took.

Tags: alberta, alberta railway museum, chairs, hdr, museum, railway, seats

Ghetto lighting…

I often receive comments and questions about low lighting in my self portrait shots. The Ghetto Lighting group over on Flickr defines ghetto lighting as:

If you use desklamps, your window, candles, whatever else I have not mentioned, then you my friend, use ghetto lighting.

I never really thought of this as “ghetto lighting” when I first picked up my Canon Digital Rebel XTi/400D back in November of last year, I was just using what I had on hand. Because of the season and the early sunset I really had no choice but to use what I could, and my favorite weapon of choice was, and still is, my IKEA Expressivo desk lamp. And it’s cheap!

Initially, the basic process I followed was to set up my shot, take a couple shots on the default setting to see what the camera “thought” I should be shooting at. Based on that, I’d crank up the shutter speed and/or the aperture setting until I received the desired level of dark/light that I was after. In other words, if the default settings took the shot at 1/8s at f/1.8, I’d adjust the shutter speed to 1/20s and go from there, increase to 1/30s if needed or decrease to 1/13s as desired.

Sure I could use Photoshop curves and levels, but I find more satisfaction in trying to do as much as I can in camera.

Tags: flickr, ghetto lighting, lamp, low light, self-portrait, tip

5 Quick Tips to Keep You Motivated

Short little piece over at the Digital Photography School blog… as photographers we all get into funks or feel unmotivated from time to time… here’s 5 quick tips to keep you motivated!

1. Go for a walk
2. 5 in a half (take 5 photos in half a mile or kilometre)
3. Check past DPS articles
4. Be random on Flickr
5. Fill in the blank - what do you do?

As for number 5, I find that playing with other peoples photos helps get things cracking again. Below is a photo that I modified for the Stop, Collaborate and Listen. group on Flickr.

Check out the original 5 Quick Tips to Keep You Motivated post over at DPS.

Tags: bca, bigcrustyape, collaborate and listen, digital photography school, DPS, motivation, Portrait, scl, stop, Tips

How to Geotag Images

Over on the Digital Photography School blog, there’s a new article about Geotagging images.

In this post Colin Spencer gives us a good introduction to how to Geotag images. You can see some of Colin’s images here and learn more about him at the conclusion of this article.

When I first started using flickr, I mapped some of the images I’d taken. The main issue I had with this was that my ONLINE version of a photo was tagged, my OFFLINE version wasn’t. I started geotagging my offline images a few months ago, unfortunately I don’t have a GPS device to automatically do it, but I found a cool freeware program called GeoSetter that does a wonderful job!

Check out How to Geotag Images over at DPS, and check out my geotagged photos on Flickr!

Tags: colin sepncer, digital photography school, DPS, flickr, geo tagging, geosetter, geotag, map, mapping

flickr Fave of the Day : cantaloupe vine by *Karo*

cantaloupe vine, Originally uploaded by *Karo*

I really like *Karo*’s work, and I really liked the composition, crop and simplicity of this shot.

Tags: *karo*, flickr Fave of the day

Textured Petal Abstract

Really like the added touch textures add to some images. This is a macro detail of some tulip petals with a texture added in Photoshop set to overlay layer mode.

Free texture was made available by Joy on Flickr.

Tags: flickr, flower, free, joy, texture

Macro Monday : Beach/Sand/Dirt

I’m always looking for new ideas and ways to increase my learning with photography. One of the groups I joined on Flickr is Macro Mondays. Every week, a new theme is set then the following Monday, everyone uploads a maximum of five images to the group. This weeks Macro Monday was Beach/Sand/Dirt. The image below seems to be the most popular of my set for the week.

Tags: beach, macro, macro mondays, raynox, sand