Favorite Links

I realized that I needed a centralized place to list my favorite and recommended links. I didn't want to use a link sidebar as those tend to get really long and distracting. So, here is a running compilation of my favorite photography related links. I will link to in at the top of the sidebar and will be adding to it as I find sites to recommend.


Photon Links

1001 Noisy Cameras is a blog that tracks the happenings among the camera manufacturers on the web. It is an excellent place to go to find the latest rumors as well as links to leaks and compilations of sales statistics.
bythom is Thom Hogan's blog and website. He is a professional landscape photographer. His site also is packed full of information about Nikon photography products. If you are a Nikon shooter, checkout his site.
David Tejada: A commerical photographer's blog with stunning photographs and excellent behind the scenes videos.
digial Photography School blog: A great resource for people learning photography or brushing up on their skills. Check out the forums while you are there.
Digital Photography Review is one of the quintessential websites for camera reviews. They have recently started reviewing lens as well. Their forums are very active and a good source of information and at times amusement.
Digital ProTalk: A reknowned wedding photographer with lots of photography, business and Photoshop tips.
FlashFlavor: Another wedding photographer that uses small flashes extensively in his work. Trash the dress!
Joe McNally: Lighting Guru, National Geographic/Life/Time/Sports Illustrated photographer, writer. One of the good guys.
Lighting Essentials: A lighting resource for both studio and location portraiture. He works mainly with models ... lots of pretty models at that.
Moose Peterson : A wildlife and research photographer. Great landscapes and wildlife shots here.
Pro Photo Life: Jim Talkington's excellent blog that discusses the business of photography as well as the technical side of it.
Photozone is a one stop place for lens reviews. If you are looking for a new lens, they have probably tested and reviewed it.
Rob Galbraith: Digital Photography Insights is a professional's observations on the industry and trends.
The Strobist: The quitessential site for learning how to use small strobes quickly and effectively.

Pixel Links

Dave Cross: One of the Photoshop Guys.
Epic Edits Weblog: Brian Auer's photography and Photoshop blog.
Photoshop User TV: The link to see the Photoshop Guys' shows. Great tips on using Photoshop and some of the other Adobe products.
Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider: One of the Photoshop guys and author of Photoshop and photography books.

Project Links

DIYPhotography.net: A good resource for do-it-yourself projects to try and save some cash on photographic equipment.
Lighting Mods: Another good place to search for DIY ideas.

Presentation Links

Flickr: The most popular photography sharing and social site.
Mpix.com: An excellent print lab. I love the Kodak metalic paper.
Pbase: A photograph hosting service which is a bit more upscale than Flickr.
SmugMug: A photograph hosting service which is a bit more upscale than Flickr.
Zenfolio: Another upscale photograph hosting service and the one that I use.








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AA Battery Test at PopPhoto.com

PopPhoto.com has a good article testing various AA batteries, both rechargable and single use. I have been needing to get some rechargables for around the house and my flash, so I found it to be quite a timely article.



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Hollywild Animal Park

Peacock Strut

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I had been busy getting ready for my parents to visit. They were bringing my son back and staying the weekend. So, I had to clean the house and get ready for them.

On Saturday, we went out to Hollywild Animal Park. Hollywild is a local exotic animal park that trains animals for Hollywood. Several of their animals have appeared in movies, television shows, commercials, advertising and promotional campaigns. They also have a small zoo set up to earn money in order to pay expenses for the animal's upkeep. The park also has a very popular Christmas lights display during the holiday season. In the zoo there are various exhibits, gift shop, picnic shelters, and a "safari" ride through their "Outback" which is home to European deer, Sitka deer, emus, bison, watusi, and other cattle. More after the jump.



My son really enjoyed feeding the baby goats and some deer. We got some nice photographs and had a good time. The weather was hot, but there was a nice overcast that softened the sunlight. I shot all of the photographs with my 18-135mm lens. I chose this one because I knew I would need the flexibility to capture wide and zoomed shots. It worked well and I'm happy with what I was able to capture.

The full gallery is here.

Emus:

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Peacocks

The Bold

The Beautiful

The Cocky

The End

Hoof Animals:

Alphonso

Solitary

Lakota

The "Outback"

Thanks for reading. Have fun and keep shooting.

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Some Birds and Flowers

I dropped my son off at my parents this weekend for a week long visit. I spent the night there as it is a long drive and I didn't feel like driving it twice in one day. While I was there I helped get their wireless network working with my father's new laptop. I also spent some time out on the patio trying to photograph the birds that were visiting their bird feeder.

A couple more after the jump.




Most of the shots turned out blurry. I guess a combination of the low, evening light, full zoom and a maximum aperture of f/5.6 where to blame for it. I probably should have used a tripod which I will do next time. I also tried to get some photographs of hummingbirds at my parent's feeder, but those were even worse. I had to shoot the hummingbirds through two panes of window glass and I think the camera focused on the glass instead of the birds. It was still neat to see the little birds. My mom said they were juveniles just starting to get their wings as it were.





They also have a couple of hydrenia bushes that are nearly as old as I am that were in full bloom. Quite a nice color of light blue on them right now.





That's it for now. The full gallery is here, but it isn't very large and is variations of the above shots.

Have fun and keep shooting.
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Epic Edits and Your Weaknesses

Brian Auer over at Epic Edits Weblog has an interesting article today. One of his readers, photographer Neil Creek, asked him what he thought was his weakest area of photography. It seemed like a good question to me. More after the jump.



Mr. Auer broke his weaknesses into a technical weakness and an artistic weakness. I think that is generally how I'd describe my weaknesses as well. Please understand that I am a hyper-self-critical Virgo, so I don't think anything I do is ever really good enough. Thus, my first answer would probably be that I'm weak at everything. ;-) Looking a bit closer and distilling the issues down, there a couple of areas that I don't feel comfortable with right now.

Technically, I really am still learning how to use the camera, but let's not hold something so general against me for the purpose of this discussion. I would say my biggest technical weakness would be judging good light from bad light and using lighting to my advantage. By lighting I mean both natural and artificial sources such as flashes, strobes, modifiers, etc. Photography is all about the light. A good understanding of how light works, how it affects contrast, how it can change appearances and so on is vital to good photography. This is part of the learning process of photography. We need to become as conversant in understanding light and it's nuances as possible. I think my photograhy is just starting to get to the point of taking light into consideration, rather than simply copying the scene in front of the lens.

How will I work to improve this? Practice. Light is everywhere. I will try to observe how light reflects, refracts, highlights and shades the scenes that I photograph. I will try to extend that to observing the world around me even when I don't have a camera with me. Becoming more aware of light and it's intereactions in general should help improve my photography. Working with artificial lighting will require some additional equipment. I will try to get or improvise the equipment to work with artificial lighting.

Now what about my artistic weaknesses. There are a couple of things that I think I need to work on. The first being composition or perhaps more precisely graphic design. I come from a technical background and have little formal education in graphic techniques and design. Actually, a lot of us probably have very little formal education in this area as it is not a subject that is emphasised in our educational system. While I have learned to follow certain rules for techical issues in my careers, the artistic side of thought hasn't gotten as much exercise. How am I working to improve it? I have been reading some books on the subject in to better understand the building blocks of graphic image design. In addition to that, I try to think about what might be good compositional elements for a given photograph and apply the ideas presented in what I've read.

The other artistic area I need to work on is people. Many of my photographs are taken of landscapes, flowers, or even still lifes. Relatively few of my photographs are taken of people. The people that I am most comfortable photographing are of course my family. I am very hestitant to photograph strangers. Street photography looks like an interesting genre of photography, but when I'm out with my camera I have a very hard time pointing my camera at strangers. I don't like to intrude on people, and some people consider having their photograph taken very intrusive. I am also a fairly introspective person, and like to keep to myself. Approaching someone to ask permission to photograph them is also difficult for me. How will I work on changing this? That is probably going to be a bigger issue than the others. Indeed, it may be one that I don't improve at all. There are certainly enough other things that interest me photographically, that I still would have plenty of subjects available if I don't practice street photography. Maybe I could try wedding photography. That should give me a good kick in the gut to be more intereactive with people, eh?

In the end how would I improve any of my weakness? Practice, Education, and more Practice.

What do you think are your weakest areas?

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What I Use: Part III

Once we have captured the photograph with the camera and processed it in our software of choice, we usually want to display the fruits of our creative labor in some way. Today I will discuss what I currently use for presenting my photographs and images.



As we are in the digital photography age, there are quite a few ways in which we can display our imagery. Prints are of course the long standing method of showing our photographs to people as are slide shows. I remember watching shows of photographs that my father had taken on slides with his old Yashica SLR/Rangefinder. I have a particular fondness for the slides taken from the Kennedy/Canaveral Space Port. That was back during the Apollo age when space exploration was an exciting event that spurred the imaginations of children.

Of course there are also new ways we have of displaying our images. Online sites like Flickr have expositionally expanded the potential audience of our imagery from family members, close friends and co-workers to anyone with a computer around the world. Here are the services and ways in which I’m sharing and presenting my images.

Online Storage and Gallery

My primary gallery is located at Zenfolio. When I started taking digital photographs a year ago, I looked at several of the common photography sites. Flickr is by far the most popular. It is as much a social site as it is a photographic gallery. However, I found that I didn’t like the fact that everyone’s galleries seemed to look the same. Sure the photographs were different, but there didn’t seem to be any way to individualize the look of your site or a particular gallery. So I looked to other options.



What I found were a group of sites that positioned themselves as more about presenting your images in a creative way than simply making them available for on-line viewing. Sites like Pbase, SmugMug, and Zenfolio in particular caught my attention. These sites distinguish themselves from Flickr by trying to be a little more upscale or professional in their presentation. As such they do not generally have a free storage option. Thus, you have a small annual subscription fee for a certain amount of storage capacity. I didn’t find that their subscription fees were particularly unreasonable for the service provided, so the fact there was a fee didn’t immediately put me off of them. I am not one of those people that thing everything on the internet should be free. If someone creates a good service or product that fulfills a need, then I feel they deserve the right to make a profit for their labors. Of course, it can go the other way as well as there are those that try to make too much of a profit for the services they provide.

As I researched the galleries of photographers on these sites, I really liked the overall style of the Zenfolio gallery templates and services. There seemed a good variety of gallery styles, layouts, and access controls. The basic subscription rate was $25 US per year for unlimited storage. Some of the other services had limited capacity for a similar price. Zenfolio didn’t have the social features of some of the other services such a commenting on galleries and photographs, but that wasn’t a feature that was particularly important to me. Thus, when I weighed the pros and cons of the services, Zenfolio came out ahead. I have been using them for about a year now and have been very happy with them. They have provided regular updates to the gallery features and expanded the types of services available through them. For example they now have a higher subscription level, the “Professional” level, which allows the photographer to sell prints through their printing partner with mark-ups. In other words, it can now be used as an e-commerce site by professional photographers to sell their prints world-wide. Zenfolio has also expanded their offerings with their printing partners so that a wide range of print sizes and framing styles are available to potential buyers. Which leads me to the next sections …



Prints

There are two ways of getting prints of your digital images. The first is of course printing them yourself. I have an HP Photosmart C6180 all-in-one printer at home. I have been quite happy with the prints I have gotten from it. Most of the prints have been on HP Premium Plus Photo Paper, High Gloss. The main reason I got this printer was because it was a wireless all-in-one unit. The only cord I have attached to it is the power adaptor. It connects to the home network wirelessly via the wireless router. This allows both me and my wife to use the printer without one or the other computer having to be left turned on or getting bogged down due to processing the spool-queue. The printer uses six individual ink cartridges one of which is a large black cartridge for text printing. It has printed very nice, full page images (8.5 inch by 11 inch).

While the HP printer is handy, if I want larger print sizes I need to use a lab or printing service. For that I use Mpix.com. They are Zenfolio’s primary printing partner. I have gotten 12 inch by 18 inch prints from them that are stunning. They have three types of Kodak paper to select. The Kodak Metallic Paper is absolutely fantastic for photographs with a lot of rich colors in them. The metallic sheen really makes the colors come to life. Mpix.com has a variety of mounting options from just standard prints, to mounted on matting boards, to framed, and even gallery wraps. Zenfolio has recently expanded their partnership with Mpix.com to include all of Mpix.com’s offerings. Mpix.com also takes orders from their website, so I highly recommend trying their services. My orders have been delivered timely and the quality has been superb.

Blogging

It might be strange to discuss the blogging platform I chose, but it is an equally valuable part of presenting digital photographs. I chose Google’s Blogger/BlogSpot as it seemed the simplest to use, the most widely used, and the most likely to still be around in a few years. Plus, it is free. You get a lot of service for the money. When I was first setting up the blog, I did have some initial issues. Chiefly, I had to research how to add the “jump” feature so that only a post’s introduction would appear. I knew that I can get wordy at times and I didn’t want long posts clogging up the front page. The “jump” link I had seen on so many other blogs was something that I knew I would use. The problem is that there isn’t a “jump” feature built-in to the Blogger templates. I had to research on the Blogger support site to find out how to do it. The process involved hacking the CSS HTML/XML. Luckily, there are a couple of Blogger power users that have good posts to walk non-coders through the process. In the end though, I suppose that it does help to know how the unseen, code-side of the blog is structured.

Others

As I take a lot of photographs of family events and trips, I also will make CDs/DVDs for family members. I have even given CDs of school events to my son’s teacher and school for them to use as well.



I hope this post was helpful to get an idea of the services and products that I use to share and display my images. The services which I selected are the ones that have appealed to me the most and provided the service level that I have expected. Therefore, I feel safe in recommending them to anyone that is looking for such services. However, there are a lot of services available to today’s photographers that provide exceptional value. The other gallery sites such as PBase and SmugMug are examples of services that I would recommend to anyone. They have some offerings that Zenfolio doesn’t have and vice-versa of course. In this case, I simply found Zenfolio more suited to my style than the other two services. Perhaps you would prefer SmugMug or Flickr more. Each of the services should have a free trial period so you can test them out. Give the services and products that interest you a test run before commenting to them. What works for me, might not work for you. The good thing about the internet these days is there is probably something for everyone’s particular sense of style or need.

Thanks for reading and keep shooting.


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Hot Times

It has been close to 100 degrees F the past couple of weeks here with humidity close to 100%. In other words, it has been miserable to go out for long periods of time. We got some rain last night though, so I hope that the weather is starting to get a bit better.

There hasn't really been much going one to photograph lately either. I'm looking at doing some studio / still-life work for when the weather is bad outside. The biggest issue though is lighting. I hope to have something figured out for that soon.

Anyway, keep cool out there.


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Book Review: Understanding Shutter Speed by Bryan Peterson

Bryan Peterson’s book, Understanding Exposure, is widely recommended to new photographers that want to get a handle on how to meter and expose their photographs. His new book, Understanding Shutter Speed: Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Beyond 1/125 Second is a companion to his original book.


While the current edition of Understanding Exposure still feels very much like it was written during the film era, the new book fully embraces modern digital photography. He only briefly discusses the topics covered in the first book, thus it helps if the reader has read the previous work. For instance, he mentions the “Sky Brothers” as places to take your exposure reading with only a brief explanation as to what they are (i.e. taking an exposure reading from a section of the sky depending on the time and circumstances of the shot). However, those details are not the focus of this book.

Understanding Shutter Speed is concerned with how to use shutter speed to achieve particular visual or artistic effects. He does discuss ISO and in particular the ability of modern digital cameras to change ISO, a change he appears to have fully embraced. He does mention aperture as it relates to depth of field concerns. Mostly, both settings are discussed in their effect on achieving the shutter speed for the effects that he presents.

Understanding Shutter Speed is very simply organized into five chapters, the introduction and an index. The chapters are titled: Shutter Speed Facts and Myths; Fast & Moderate Speeds; Slow Speeds; Exposure Concerns; and Composition.

It the first chapter, “Shutter Speed Facts and Myths”, Mr. Peterson discusses some general exposure concepts, what to expect at the various extremes of the exposure spectrum, and a discussion of ISO in digital cameras. Interestingly, Mr. Peterson generally uses the lowest ISO his camera supports and indeed most of the photographs in the book are taken at ISO 100 or ISO 200.

The second chapter relates to using fast and moderate shutter speeds to freeze motion or to imply motion in certain ways. These are the shutter speeds that most new photographers are likely to be most comfortable using. Mr. Peterson demonstrates how they can be used more creatively and purposefully by the photographer.

“Slow Speeds” is the title of the third and my favorite chapter. It describes how to use slow shutter speeds in a variety of creative ways. For beginning photographers, these slower speeds tend to cause a certain amount of consternation and problems. For example, slow shutter speeds tend to cause photographs to be blurry when you would prefer to things in sharp focus. Some of the techniques he discusses I had read about in other books, while others were new to me, and all are very well explained and illustrated.

The chapter starts with Panning using shutter speeds of 1/30, 1/15, 1/8 and ¼ of a second as a means to imply motion. Panning is moving the camera along with a moving subject. If done properly, the subject will be relatively sharp while the background will be blurred. The next topic in the chapter is about implying motion with a tripod. The technique here is to use long shutter speeds to allow a moving subject to blur while getting sharp foregrounds/backgrounds. Both the tripod and panning techniques can be practiced by sitting in your front yard and shooting passing vehicles. Or if your house is not on a busy street, try a local park with a comfy bench. Third in the chapter is “painting” with shutter speed. This is a subject of which I already made a post with my first attempts here. In this technique you use long shutter speeds and move either the camera or yourself. It tends to create very abstract images, and may not be to everyone’s liking. However, it can be quite fun especially with very colorful subjects like flower beds or fall foliage. Other topics in the chapter include attaching the camera to moving objects, low-light photography (dusk, night, dawn) with shutter speeds of 1 second or longer and creating photographs of “ghosts”. Off all of the chapters, I found this one to contain the most fun and enjoyable ideas. Plus, because it is using longer shutter speeds and is not as dependent on fast, “professional” lenses, it is something that anyone can try.

The fourth chapter, “Exposure Concerns” is an overview of how aperture, ISO and other factors can affect the shutter speeds you need to achieve particular effects. It is also the chapter that discusses modern digital methods in the most detail. Topics include White Balance issues, long exposures with rear curtain flash synch, using filters to get longer shutter speeds, and most interestingly shooting in Raw format. It is this last subject that caught my attention the most in the chapter. Mr. Peterson calls Raw the “Anti” neutral density (ND) filter. Here he discusses how you can use Raw format to deliberately underexpose a photograph to attain higher shutter speeds to freeze motion. Hence the “anti”-ND filter term since an ND filter can be used to cut down the light reaching the sensor so that you can use longer shutter speeds. Mr. Peterson suggests that if you find yourself in a situation where you need to freeze action, but can’t get a “correct” shutter speed to do so, that you shoot in Raw format and deliberately under expose by up to 2 stops. The idea here is that with modern Raw converters such as Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, Nikon Capture NX, etc., a photograph that is under exposed by up to two stops can be “recovered” much more easily than in the past. He does note that the photograph will look dark in the LCD review, but you should be able to get a better image once you are able to process the image in your raw converter of choice. I have had some success with recovering under exposed images in this way, not because of purposefully under exposing, but rather correcting for my own exposure mistakes. However, I would think that this is a technique that you would want to use only when necessary due to poor lighting conditions as you can run the risk of increasing the noise in your image..

In the final chapter titled “Composition”, Mr. Peter discusses various compositional techniques and styles to compliment your use of particular shutter speeds. Topics include the almost ubiquitous “Rule of Thirds”, filling the frame, leaving room for the action, as well as varying composition by exploring a subject or theme in various ways.

In conclusion, Mr. Peterson’s Understanding Shutter Speed is an excellent follow-up to his original book, Understanding Exposure. Unlike the original title, Understanding Shutter Speed brings Mr. Peterson’s techniques and methods fully into the digital medium. While many of the topics would be of use to photographers that use digital SLR cameras, anyone with a compact camera which allows the user to manually change the shutter speed will find ideas that may spark some new, creative avenues. Personally, I’ve started experimenting with his “shutter painting” and zooming techniques as has my eight-year old son with his compact camera. Each page is generously illustrated with Mr. Peterson’s photographs. There is a lot to please the eye if all you want to do is look at the photographs. Luckily, there is a lot of good information and discussion in an easy to read voice to accompany the beautiful images.

If you have previously read and enjoyed Understanding Exposure, then I fully recommend Understanding Shutter Speed.


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Fall Colors

I've been working on a new book review, but it isn't ready yet. So, here are some shots from last fall when we went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina during the fall colors. It started off cloudy and rainy, but cleared out at lunch time to beautiful blue skies. Enjoy and I hope to have the review up by Monday.

More photos after the jump.


Tourists Crossing the Road

From the Car

Cresting Mt. Mitchell

Blending Colors

Painted Slope

Blue Ridges

Autumn Flame



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Happy Birthday!

It was one year ago that I got my D80 with the 18-135mm lens. One year since I started out on this photographic hobby and journey. I've had a lot of fun with it. I've learned a lot and I'm looking forward to learning even more.

Happy Birthday, D80.



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What I use - Part II: Software

Previously I had mentioned the equipment that I use when photographing. This time I'll talk about the software that I use to process my photographs.



I predominately shoot in RAW format. As RAW is the digital eqivalent to a negative, I need to process the photographs to get a final image. These are the software tools that I currently use.

Nikon View NX: This is the viewer that I use to preview and sort my shots. I will rate on a 3 point scale with "1" being select keepers, "2" being possible keepers, and "3" being duds/stinkers. It is a fluid scale as I make several passes through the images to refine what I think are the best shots of a given batch. Eventually, all of the images that I process out to final JPEGs get rated as a "1" to ease searching for them later in View NX.

Nikon Capture NX: I am currently using version 1.3.3. This is the RAW converter software that I use. I have had the best results with it and feel that it handles Nikon's NEF format the best of the converters that I have available to me. I particularly like the color control points as it greatly simplifies local color/exposure corrections. However, Capture NX is a bit of a system resource hog and tends to slow down after prolonged use. Plus, the interface isn't the most intuitive around. Still, I am happy with the results that I get from it.

As I don't usually do a lot of post processing beyond exposure/color correction and sharpening, I will generally save a photograph to JPEG format as a final step. However, there are times that I need to do more extensive corrections, or want to do things that Capture NX doesn't have the tools to perform. In those cases I will use one of the following applications.

Adobe Photoshot Elements version 5: This is my image/pixel editor. It also has a cataloging feature, but I tend not to use it much at the moment. I probably should use it more than I do, but oh well. PSE5 is what I use if I need to clone out dust spots or other objects. It is also where I will do major distortions such as Amazing Circles. Capture NX doesn't have the tools to do those sorts of functions.

Gimp: The Gimp is a freeware image editor that is sort of between PSE5 and the full Photoshop package. Its' interface is not intuitive at all, but you can get good results if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use it well and tend to use PSE5 instead. Still, sometimes I will use Gimp to try out different techniques that PSE5 isn't capable of itself.

Paint.Net: This is another freeware image editor. It started as a graduate research project in conjunction with Microsoft to develop a more robust image editor to replace the Paint accessory in Windows. Microsoft ended up not incorporating it into Windows, but the original graduate students have taken it and improved it throughout the years. It is a very good image editor that is easier to use than the Gimp. However, it doesn't have quite a many features as the Gimp. If you have a Windows computer and want something a bit more powerful than Paint, but don't want to spend alot of money, then Paint.Net is a good choice.

The Future:

Photoshop: Eventually, I will upgrade to the full version of Photoshop. It is still a bit more than I really need, but I think I'm getting close to the point where PSE5 won't be able to do the things I want to do with an image.

Lightroom version 2: Lightroom is Adobe's application to help photographer develop, organize and output their images. It is a combination library and digital darkroom. Version 2, which is in beta, adds some new features most notably localized corrections. Instead of using control points like Capture NX does to generate a mask, Lightroom 2 lets you "paint" corrections onto an area and automatically generates a mask of the area you painted. It is a different way of doing the same sort of function. I've played around with the Lightroom 2 beta and liked what I saw. I don't know if I'll get it or not, but it is a possiblity.

Capture NX 2: Nikon just announced the next version of Capture NX today and there are a couple of previews/reviews out already. Supposedly it has a much improved interface and runs better than the version I currently use. Plus, it adds additional features such as a cloning capability for small items, and new "selection control points" that allow you to use the control point functionality to general masks for localized corrects of features such as noise reduction, sharpening, levels and curves, etc. It is expensive for an upgrade though, $109 USD for an upgrade, and $170 USD for the full version. It may make more sense for me to go with Lightroom 2 and replace both View NX and Capture NX. It would simplify my application workflow, but would be more expensive upfront. Decisions, decisions.

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Some Links

I took a break from photography this past weekend. I guess I was a bit burned out from the Memorial Day weekend. So, today I'll leave you with a few links to other photography sites that I enjoy.



Pro Photo Life, written by Jim Talkington, is a fairly new blog. Jim is a professional commercial photographer in the Cincinatti, Ohio area. He covers a lot of different topics ranging from the business side of photography, equipment, and lighthing. He also has interviews with other professional photograpers as well as other photography releated topics. Every Monday he has a new video. He is currently working on an introduction to studio lighting video series. If you are interested in making photography a business, check out his site, and download his free PDF e-book about starting up a photography business.

Moose Peterson is an accomplished wildlife and nature photographer. Beautiful photographs grace his site. He gives workshops throughout the year and around the country/world.

David Tejada specializes in corporate annual report photography. He is based in Denver, Colorado and travels around the country making the mundane corporate world look interesting a glamorous. Periodically he will post behind the scenes videos of some of his shoots. It gives a good look at how an experienced photographer works on his assignments, plans the photographs, and interacts with ordinary working people to capture beautiful images.

FlashFlavor is the blog of Matt Adcock. Together with his wife, Sol Tamargo, Matt specializes in destination wedding photography. They photograph people getting married in some of the most beautiful locations in the world. The site is called FlashFlavor because they make extensive use of small, external flash units as part of their style. Checkout their "trash the dress" series where the bride "trashes" her wedding dress by frolicking in the Carribean surf or a subterranian bat cave.

Finally, no list of photography links would be complete without mentioning The Strobist blog. David Hobby has created what is possibly the best site dedicated to the use of small, portable flashes on the internet. If you have any desire to make better use of your flash unit, you owe it to yourself to read his site.

That's it for now. Keep shooting

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