Which part of the story are you telling?
After the fact?
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That lilikoi pie was awfully good. Emphasis on was.

Or that decisive click of the shutter occurring in the peak of the moment?

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Did you see that? and no photoshop?

Was the photographer waiting for the dolphin because it had just breached? Or because the diver was going to launch?
Was the pie so darn good that a photo of the freshly cut, tart goodness wasn’t the share but finished container said how good it was?

Is it your own natural, life pace that determines the images you make? Or perhaps the opportunity presented will shift your vision. Even if only momentarily.
Somehow I think that no matter what your preferred methodology, you may, and should, creatively stray from time to time.

[photopress:portrait61.gif,thumb,alignright] Would I expect to see Ansel Adams in the dog pack of paparazzi taking shots of Brittany ? Maybe not.
Although an 8×10 camera on a tripod running behind a car would be pretty funny.

Here is the point of all of this: whether photography is your profession or passion you should always take another look; put away the tripod, or take it out. Shoot with strobes or just existing light. Prop the shot or use existing elements. Stretch it out a bit. Maybe you didn’t miss the shot. Maybe the shot hasn’t happened yet.Or perhaps it’s sitting there waiting for you.

Photograph your life before, during, and after. At the very least, the looks back will amaze you. You may be known for your portraits but that schooner on the high sea is talking to ya. Or maybe the lilikoi pie is.

I know, it may all seem like you know this all intuitively. True.
There are times we all need a little reminder though. Not permission to stray, but a nudge to reawaken your stuff.

Too heady?

Sorry, after going through a spring cleaning of images, remembered the photos from before.
In the days of film, the days of yore.
And anytime you can review a collection of work, hopefully it just asks new questions, like “If I keep doing this will I get better? Tell a better story? Share an emotion in a clearer way ?”

Sometimes it’s the event as it happens, sometimes it’s the resulting artifacts.

OK, enough musings. For now.

[photopress:6.jpg,full,centered] © Aline Smithson

I met Aline Smithson, quite randomly, a few weeks ago, while waiting to hear a photographers panel at the local museum. We exchanged business cards, promising to check out each others websites.

Wow. Very cool work, that was very easy to digest.

There is an approachable and comfortable sense to her work, that led me to go further and further along into the portfolios.

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Always have been a fan of the series and the storyline. Ms. Smithson has taken a myriad of visual subjects including famous paintings and genres and added her life to them. Whether it’s the subjects being photographed, or the style being explored, she has presented you with a very warm enjoyable trip through her world.

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Here is her bio:
“I came to photography through the back door. My father and uncle were photographers and my career was centered around it, but it wasn’t until I found my uncle’s twin lens Rolleiflex that I embraced photography fully as my own. Seeing the world through my own photographic vision has become a wonderful obsession.
After graduating from the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara, I moved to New York City to make my living as a painter, and although I continued to paint, my career moved into the fashion world. I worked for many years as the Fashion Editor for Vogue Patterns Magazine in New York City, and then continued on in Los Angeles as a freelance photo stylist. As a fashion editor, I had the privilege of working with many exceptional fashion photographers, including Horst, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, and Bert Stern.
After standing next to the camera for many years, I have discovered that it is behind the camera that I find my joy and passion. Moments, only fleeting in real life, become more revealing and expansive in a photograph. It is with integrity and humor that I wish to explore life around me–through portraits and places that have marked my memories and imagination. “

In addition, she is an instructor at the Julia Dean Photography Workshops.

Take a look at her site when you have some time. Let her photographs tell you the rest of her story.

[photopress:513QN4BZ8SL._SL500_AA280_.jpg,full,alignright] While reading the latest issue of Creativity, there was a prefect ending to the issue with Last Word by Renny Gleeson. He is the Global Director, Digital Strategies for Wieden & Kennedy one of the most consistently creative and breakthrough advertising agencies in the world.

The discussion wrapped around the subtitle of “Advertising is dead. So why am I excited ?” If that is your business, you know why you’re excited. It’s the same reason we are getting our messages right here.
But the 2 main points to share here are:
A. The future still belongs to the storytellers.
B. When you create out of passion it’s never work.

OK, here is a quote from the article:
“I’m excited that the most creative stuff I see online isn’t done by brands or agencies. It’s done by normal people. Civilians, for God’s sake. Having FUN. People making great stuff (and crap,for sure) because they like to, feel the need to, are inspired to. A lot of agencies and brands are doing interactive work because they have to. they know thy have to. Like eating fish oil pills for your Omega-3. Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival ( a great book on dealing with extreme paradigm shift) talks at length about working from a place of fear or from acceptance. ” I suffer through my obligations, but I’d do anything for love. “

Can you relate at all to that phrase? i can.

Now you should pick up a copy of the magazine for the full article.
It’s pretty advertising industry centric but there are some of the smartest, most talented people in that world.

We all learn from many different teachers. And sources. You never know what may inspire you to press the shutter the next time . It could be music, a book, or heck, even weather. “Rainy days and Mondays always …….”
You’re not gonna make me finish that song , are you?

Which are some of the reasons you’re here – to get some new info and share what you already know via your images and comments.

Thanks to Teresa Iezzi for editing a pretty cool magazine in Creativity.

And yes, we get the paper AND on-line editions.

If you’d like to hear and see “The Things We Do For Love” by 10CC, click here.

It’s about your color.

Your Monitor color. Your Print color.
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We’ve been walking all around the issue forever, but it’s about time to face it.

Since you may be dealing with the full on digital world at this point, even if you shoot film, you will be calibrating your monitor. And your printer. Yep, you have to do the whole shooting match if you want the best results.

There are some excellent products out there for every budget, and they do essentially the same thing:
Make sure the color you see on your monitor is the color that gets printed.

We know you’ve spent some dough on your printers and all of us have been frustrated with the off prints that get spit out. Expensive ink, expensive paper, expensive time.

The best way to solve that is to make sure all components are talking to each other and speaking the same language.

Here’s is simply how it happens: The Colorimeter reads the screen of your monitor and helps you calibrate it to the real world. Of course consistent light on the monitor helps but we can’t always get that.

This color “profile” can be used to output file to pro printing labs or coupled with a printing papers “profile”.
You can also scan color test prints to make sure it’s all working. That’s another part of the process we’ll discuss soon.

What we have for you this week is the Spyder2express monitor calibration device plus software. Take the first step towards looking good, and limiting our frustration at the printer.

Coming up we will look at one of the latest and greatest full service solutions for outputting great color after all of your hard work in Photoshop.( hint: it’s just been released)

To be eligible for this freebie you must be on the NEWSLETTER list which will be sent on Weds. @ 9:00AM PST.

And here is how the giveaway works:
1. open the email from damonw@photoinduced.com and Hit Reply
3. Delete the main body of the email (saving server space).
4. Put the “special word” – included in the NEWSLETTER only, in the subject line.
5. Add a shipping address.
6. Hit send.
The 45th person to reply will be sent
either the Spyder2express OR

And for those who don’t want to get too technical, we’ll list another giveaway item, right here on this article, on Weds. morning. Come back and be surprised.

Surprise!!!!
[photopress:41G9RDZ32EL._SL500_AA240_.jpg,full,alignright] Personal Exposures By Elliot Erwitt is the extra giveaway this week.And if you have the NEWSLETTER you know why.Just put the words “Who Knew” into the subject line and follow the instructions from above

Lots of stuff coming up: gear,books and events.
We’re just full of it.

Hey, we heard that!

Started to go through the new Lightroom Beta and here’s what we have so far:
After shooting an assignment yesterday, came back loaded up the images into Lightroom with the backups going to a test folder. And then……

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While the load-in was pretty much the same, the Develop feature had something that is very cool. There is a Detail square where you can isolate sections of an image (illustrated above) to go in and do your fixes on. And that seems to be the theme in this new version.
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With the new ability to dodge and burn PLUS do localized corrections with a brush, a mask (excellent for localized adjustments) those new to Lightroom will wonder when they will need to go to Photoshop CS3. Maybe when they do the multi layer extravaganzas.
Finally, there is support for multiple monitors. Much needed to keep pace with competition.

Seriously, there was so much available here, that once some editing was done ,global and localized corrections made on some sample images, it was an easy export to a file to upload to another program to upload to the web. (you can read that last part again if you like)

THAT IS WHAT IS MAKING US CRAZY ABOUT THIS PROGRAM !!!! IT IS SO DANG CUMBERSOME TO UPLOAD TO THE WEB!!!!

OK, it is intuitive, great “mouth feel” ( a term used to describe food products: as long as it feels right in the mouth , we eat it), and the new features – including the 64 bit support allowing full usage of the memory- are great.
But since we’re talking beta here, totally get that…….One thing that Aperture has is the ability to publish to the web seamlessly.

After an hour on the phone with Adobe support, there were no answers. Zip.Nada.Nothing.

Now to show the client the images fast, we uploaded the files to IPhoto and published the web site for the client. Just added steps. Have tried the new Aperture and perhaps it will get another consideration, but I love me some Lightroom. Many shooters we know love Lightroom and just upload to another program to send to clients.

Am I just being lazy or cranky?

OK, as we said it is a BETA version. Stay tuned for the updates from Adobe. And if you have a great solution, post it here so we can all share.

[photopress:Micro_Battery_Spin.gif,full,alignright] By the way, a new tool for your lighting kit bag is the Micro LitePanel from, yep Litepanel. It is a square LED light with a rheostat for control. Used it on the set for a light emanating from a laptop screen. With the cool light from the unit, there was no danger of damage to the laptop. And the 4 AA batts keep it clean without wires, to be placed where you need it. There is a frame to add included gels for additional color control but it sits at about 5600K.
Designed for video, it does work best with existing lights and not so much with full strobe set-ups. But a must have in your tool box.

Final thoughts: we’ll keep working with Lightroom and give you updates.Still love it BUT….this web upload issue has to get simplified. The additional work in the flow is not a good thing.

But download the beta for yourself. Don’t worry, you can keep it as a separate program and just add some new pix to do your testing.