Photowalk Wrap-up

Tower

The photowalk this past Saturday was fun. Michael from the Photography Guild was there plus a few others that I recognized from our meetings. Of course there were new people to meet as well. Ken Toney was the walk's leader. I hope to be able to go out on more photography trips with some of the people I met.

The weather was hot and humid with a bit of the typical haze we have this time of year. Sunscreen, hats and lots of water were the order of the day.

We all kind of broke up in to separate, smaller groups and went in different directions. I saw that most people made it from Spartan Photo Center where we started to Main street. There was a mix-up at the place we were supposed to meet back up together, so we all met back at the store.

The photograph above is Spartanburg's only downtown "highrise" tower. Downtown is on a large hill and this building can be seen from miles around if you're in the right places.

Scott Kelby posted group photographs from a lot of the participating cities around the world on his blog. Our group is there in the post. Follow this link to the post and scroll down to the "S" cities and we are the Spartanburg, SC group. I'm not saying which one I am in the photo though. ;-)

I hope to do this again next year. Maybe it will be earlier in the morning or towards the evening when it is not so hot.

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Photowalk Reminder

It has been hot and humid and not fit for man nor beast to go outside during the day around here. In other words, a typical Southern summer. Thank goodness we have air conditioning this year, because we didn't last summer.

Anyway, just a reminder that Scott Kelby's 3rd Annual Worldwide Photowalk is this Saturday, July 24th. There are still a few spaces in the Spartanburg, SC photowalk if you are interested in joining us. It should be a lot of fun and I hope to meet some new people who enjoy the hobby in the area as well I do. Hope to see ya there!

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Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk

Scott Kelby is hosting another Worldwide Photowalk again this year. There are cities lined up for it all over the world. There is even one in my hometown this year, Spartanburg, SC. Head on over to the official website for it to find a photowalk near you if you are interested in participating.

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Worldwide Photowalk 2

The Corner

Scott Kelby's Second Annual Worldwide Photowalk is being held July 18, 2009. For more details go over to the Worldwide Photowalk website. There doesn't appear to be one near me yet, but that doesn't really matter this year. We have plans for that weekend and I won't be able to participate. I did go to it last year in Greenville and had a lot of fun. My shots from then are over in my gallery site here. The photograph above is one from last year's photowalk.

It looks like there are a lot more cities this year. While there is the chance to win some prizes, the best part is meeting other people with the same interest in photography. Check it out and attend one near you if you can. It is a great way to meet people, explore your hometown, and learn a bit more about photography.

If you enjoy the experience then start up a photowalk group of your own. Jeff Revell's PhotoWalkPro Blog can give you some tip and pointers on how to do just that.

That's it for today.

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What's in the Sky?

Cloud Face

A photograph from a couple of weeks ago. I think I see a dragon's face in the clouds. Do you? It is more of an Oriental style dragon than a European style one if that helps.

As part of my learning how to use Photoshop, I purchased and have been using a couple of books. Brief reviews of them after the jump.

I have been using three books for educating myself on Photoshop CS4 and one for Lightroom 2. I have generally read them all of the way through, except for one, but they have all been instrumental in getting me up to speed on the applications.

Two of the books really form a nice set as they are written by the same author and are generally organized in a similar manner. The are The Adobe Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers and The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby and published by New Riders/Voices that Matter. If you have read any of Scott Kelby's books in the past, then you will be familiar with his conversational, straight to the point, step-by-step style. If you haven't then I will say that I find his style quite approachable and instructive. The only places were he wonders off on tangents are the chapter introductions which really serve only to break up what should be a monotonous subject matter. Taken together both books have served as good "kick-starters" to get oriented with the given applications and understand their capabilities. However, if you are looking for more textbook / reference style books, then these are not the books you are looking for. He doesn't linger too long on any given subject, but does give you the approaches and step-by-step methods he uses in his own image workflow and processing. I read these before the other books and found that they got me up to speed very quickly. You can download low-resolution samples off all of the images he uses in the book so you can follow along with him throughout the lessons.

The next book is Photoshop CS4 for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book written by Ellen Anon & Josh Anon and published by Sybex. This book interested me as it focuses on using Photoshop CS4 with nature photography which is what a majority of my work has been thus far. I thought it might provide a bit more focus on those aspects of Photoshop CS4 that I would find useful then those areas that I wouldn't. Luckily, I was correct. It is a more traditionally written book than Mr. Kelby's. Which is to say that the prose is more lengthy and not as bullet-point oriented. It goes in to a bit more depth than Mr. Kelby's books which I appreciated. Still, the book is not boring to read and is written in a more modern, conversational style. It is definitely not a dry textbook style of presentation. It is well organized and includes a CD with sample images to use while following the lessons as well as several tutorial videos to help with some of the more important subjects such as making selections. The CD is compatible with both PCs and Macs. Another feature of the book is that it contains sidebars for people that are using the latest version of Photoshop Elements. These sidebars illustrate how similar results can be achieved in Elements' toolset. I thought this was a nice touch, but I am not certain that most Elements users would expect to find such information in a Photoshop CS4 book. Overall, I found the book to be a good compliment to Mr. Kelby's in that it goes into more detail in the areas that I am most interested in for nature photography.

The last book is Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider King and published by Pogue Press/O'Reilly. The Missing Manual books are a series of technology books managed by New York Times' technology columnist David Pogue. They are intended to provide accessible, in-depth information on various technology subjects such as computer applications and devices. Many applications do not come with a manual these days or are packaged with a very minimal, bare-bones manual and/or a technophile oriented PDF file/help system. The Missing Manuals seek to bridge the gap the manufacturers leave in simply using an application and learning an application. I had the Missing Manual for Photoshop Elements 5 when and was impressed with it. Thus, I thought the CS4 version would be worth a look. Again, I was not disappointed. Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual is a much larger book than the others that I have discussed here. It goes into much more detail than the other books and really does serve as the manual that Adobe didn't include in the box with Photoshop CS4. Like the other books here, it is written in an approachable style with amble directions and illustrations. Like Mr. Kelby's book you can download sample images to work on as you read through the book. If you only want to get get one book for Photoshop CS4, then this is probably the one that you want. It leaves no stone unturned in Photoshop, it is much more generally focused than the other books, and can serve has a reference manual that you pull off of the shelve when you get stuck on an image/technique.

I recommend each of these books. Indeed, I think I have learned different things from each of them as the authors' presentations and focus areas are just enough different that what one might gloss over, another will provide a useful insight in to.

Disclaimer: While I have provided links to the books on Amazon, I am not an Amazon affiliate. I don't get anything back from either Amazon, the writers or the publishers for reviewing the books. The links are simply provided for informational purposes. Where you purchase your books is entirely your decision.

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Stuff on the Web

I thought I would leave you for the weekend with some things that caught my attention around the web.

1) There is a funny thread over on the Digital Photography School forums comparing the return on investment from various stocks and getting camera gear. Check out the Retirement Fund. My take: Buy the camera gear. ;-)

2)RED, the makers of some high end digital motion cameras have saying all along that they were working toward merging digital still and motion cameras. Well, Nikon and Canon actually beat them to it, but now they have announced their response. It is an impressive modular system that lets you select everything from the sensor, to the viewfinder. It has some impressive specifications and prices to go along with it. Read a good run down of it over at 1001 Noisy Cameras. My take: Digital still and video functions are inevitably converging. However, RED's funky industrial design and industrial prices will keep it out of the average person's camera bag.

3) The Strobist is continuing his exploration of on-axis fill flash on his blog. It is always a good read over there. My take: I've really got to get some light stands and modifiers and start practicing this stuff.

4) Over at Photoshop Insider and Layers Magazine, Scott Kelby has posted his 3rd Annual Gonzo Holiday Gear Guide. My take: He showcases some neat stuff that might get me in trouble (see #s 1 and 3 above), but at least not as bad as #2 above would. ;-)

Have a good weekend whatever you do.

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Photowalk

The Corner

This past weekend was Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk. The Greenville, SC event was a lot of fun and we had great weather for it. A front had come through and cleared out all of the haze, plus the humidity was low and we had a good wind to keep it cool. Met some other photographers, shot some pictures, had lunch, and most of all had a lot of fun. I even found a couple of new areas in that part of town that I didn't know about.

My full gallery is here.
The Flickr group is here.

Keep shooting.


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Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk

Photoshop Guy, Scott Kelby, is having the first ever worldwide photowalk on August 23, 2008. It is to mark the publishing of Scott's new book for Lightroom 2. One of the cities in my metro area got added to the list in the last batch, and I registered for it. If you are interesting in attending one of the photowalks, check out the official site for cities near you and event details. Some of them have already filled up.

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