Categories
Personal

Back from a Cattle Drive

Under the stars

It’s been quiet round here because I spent the whole week on a ranch near Roswell, NM on a cattle drive.

I’m writing an article about it for New Mexico Magazine, and there was a pro photographer with me to document the goings on.

But I had my camera with me around the camp – I’m definitely not a good enough rider to have brought it with me on the horse – and I’ll be sharing some of the photos I did take over the the next few days.

These were the cowboy teepees we were sleeping in after our days in the saddle.

Categories
Personal

Drinking with cars

Well officer, you're not going to believe this, but . . .

We were at the Cowgirl over the weekend (Finn fell fast asleep), and while we were there I noticed an unlikely sight I’d not seen before – the fronts of a bunch of cars on the roof.

How you can miss a large part of a 1950s Buick I don’t know, but I’ll be looking for them again next time.

Categories
Tips/Tutorials

Flickr’s Post to Blog feature


Knitting model

Testing Flickr’s ‘Blog this photo’ functionality – you just click on an image you want to blog about (yours or anyone else’s presumably), and if you’ve set up Flickr properly, you can compose a post on the Flickr site, and it will add in the photo and send it to your blog.

Doesn’t look like to can assign categories in the default setup, so you might be better off composing the post in your favourite editor (MarsEdit) for me, and pasting in the link to the Flickr photo that way.

But still a useful tool, for off the cuff posts. But you’d need to watch our for blogging on other people’s photos – technically you could argue that’s fair use, so it’s OK to put their photo on your blog. But you should definitely include links and copyright information, and ideally be blogging about the photographer and their work, not just using their photo to illustrate your post.

Categories
Reviews

Test of iPhone WordPress app

A short post while I watch Heroes. Posting this from the couch using my iPhone and the WordPress app.
The lack of real full-size keyboard (I’d pay a fair bit for a folding Bluetooth option) limits the sort of blog posts you can really do.
But for emergency edits or updates (of dodgy photos of your daughter), it’s pretty handy.


Categories
Reviews

Simple monitor calibration – Spyder2 Express reviewed

Calibrating your monitor is a bit like checking the tire pressure on your car – we all know we should do it, but most of us don’t unless our business depends on it.

To ward off dissatisfaction from prints, and make sure all my editing adjustments weren’t making things worse not better, I recently bought a Color Vision Spyder2 Express Colorimeter to calibrate my laptop screen, and my 2 LCD screens (one at home, one at work).

Like falling off a log

Setting it up and using the thing – which looks like a silver shrunken version of those boardroom table speakerphones – was very straightforward.

Categories
Tips/Tutorials

My camera smells

After 18 months of heavy-duty use, my camera body had developed an unlikely problem: it stank.

And my hands took on a weird slightly putrid smell after carrying it around for a while. I guess I should have realised that it might be a good idea to clean it once in a while, but now I couldn’t delay it any longer.

Eschewing a quick check of the manual to see what it recommended, I grabbed a baby wipe and went to work. A couple of minutes later (and no scary melting or marking), everything was much better.

The matte black surface now looks much better, and crucially the thing doesn’t smell any more. Next time I take it out I won’t have to wash my hands when I get home.

Score that one for the baby wipes – the gaffer tape of the cleaning world.

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Links Personal

When it’s good to be a loser – included in JPG outtakes

I know I just posted about JPG Magazine, but there’s some new news – one of my shots has been included in the Outtakes PDF for the Fave Hangouts theme.

As they put it:

How hard is it to pick under 20 photos from over 3,000 submitted to a theme? Nearly impossible. Every issue we each see some of our favorites get cut, and it kills us. We’re always looking for new ways to recognize the amazingly talented photographers that don’t get published.

So for every theme that’s published in the print magazine, they do up an online-only collection of the photos that almost made it.

And for the Fave Hangouts theme, it was this shot from my favourite cafe in Santa Fe – Ecco on Marcy Street – that was included.

Here’s the full PDF (I’m in some great company).

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Links

Get submitting – themes for JPG 19

Can't beet it JPG magazine is running some good themes for the next issue – Nighttime, Delectable and Faith.

The quality of the images on the site is constantly impressive, and also inspiring, so if you’re in the mood, head on over and submit your own.

I submitted to Nighttime, and here’s my submissionto the Delectable theme.

If you’re interested in the sort of work I like, here are my favourite shots from other people.

Categories
News Personal Tips/Tutorials

Shooting Tessa

_MG_00841.jpgA couple of weeks ago I was hired to shoot young Tessa – the cute two-year-old daughter of some friends of ours. The shoot was great fun, and we got some good photos.

I asked if we could meet up early – around 8am – to make sure we had some nice early morning light, and we did the shoot in the garden at Tessa’s house.

This was partly so she’d be comfortable and have her stuff to play with, but it was also a great location as the trees provided some shade while the plants offered some pleasing backdrops.

Primes all the way

I brought a bunch of lenses, thinking it’d give me some options, but I pretty much only used my nifty fifty – the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

Categories
Personal Tips/Tutorials

Apple Certified Pro!

certified_pro_blk300.pngLast week I went to all4DVD in Orange County south of LA for a 2-day training course in Apple’s Aperture. And when the training was over I took the certification test, and passed. So I’m delighted to say I’m now an Apple Certified Pro Level 1 in Aperture.

The course, taught by Aperture Master Trainer Victor Maldonaldo, was pretty intense – it’s been a long time since I spent 2 days solid doing one thing in front of a computer, let alone trying to absorb all the information and instructions coming at me.