Sorry I’ve been AWOL for so long. We just returned from a 3 week trip to China. Pictures coming soon…
In the mean time, a friend sent me info on this exhibit by Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Simply amazing arial shots from all over this planet. Incredible.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/earth_from_above_comes_to_nyc.html
Chas
I followed up the first article I wrote for DPS with this one. Some of the information on choosing good lenses is Nikon specific, but it’s a valuable read for anyone interested in the topic. Read the full article on choosing lenses for wedding photography here. If you have a favorite lens, add it to the article comments.
Chas
Here is another article I wrote for DPS on 3 different slow shutter speed techniques. Share some of your own examples in the comments. The ones posted there already are very nice.
Chas
Digital Photography School recently hit the 1 million visitors a month mark. Congrats! I recently wrote an article geared towards amateur photographers looking to one day enter the relm of professional photography. I gave 5 specific tips to help them on their journey.
The article can be found here: Digital Photography School - Stepping into wedding photography
I was clearing out some of my albums in Aperture and noticed a good number of pictures from Hawaii that I liked that I thought I would share. They are a bit random in style and come from things I saw on Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. I picked out just a few to discuss here for another “Behind the Lens” post. The full Hawaii gallery is available here.
Finishing up the article on travel lenses, I wanted to pick out a few photos to illustrate my points. It seemed like we were the only tourists around as we wandered the dusty paths inside the small buddist temple site. A few of the monks were out ejoying the nice day and fresh air. Considering we already looked out of place, I was glad the camera around my neck wasn’t so huge that it drew unneeded attention.
Continue reading ‘Beginners Guide: The best globe-trotting glass pt. 2′
Since this is our first Behind the lens post, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss lenses, specifically what lenses I recommend for travel. For examples I will be using pictures from our last post on Korea. You can see the full gallery here. Sorry the post ended up so lengthy, but think of it as a primer to help you understand future Behind the lens posts. It’s just a beginners guide but buckle up, shift into first gear and lets roll.
Continue reading ‘Beginners Guide: The best globe-trotting glass pt. 1′
Amelioration, or the condition of being made better, has been Aperture’s theme song of late. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the program, it is Apples attempt to capture a piece of the photography work-flow and raw image processing market. If I already lost you, think iPhoto or Picasa on steroids. Currently, the major players right now are Adobe Lightroom (or bridge), Bibble and Aperture. Some photographers swear by the Raw conversion of Nikon Capture as well.
So which one is the best? At this point, they are all very good. I wouldn’t spend to much time sweating the details. Download some trials, see which interface feels the most intuitive to you and stick with it. Updates are frequent these days so I often avoid the cost and trouble of jumping ship each time a new “killer feature” is introduced. Wait it out and most likely you’ll get what your asking for. That being said, after running all three through their paces, I went with Aperture.
So that brings us to the big announcement: Today one more plugin has been added to the stellar ones already available. Previously, Nik had been working overtime cranking out these three can’t-do-without plug ins: Viveza, Color Efex Pro and Sliver Efex. Now Noise Ninja by PictureCode is finally available as a plugin. With this suite of plugins I now find myself rarely, very rarely in fact, leaving Aperture to enter Photoshop for photo editing. The work-flow has been streamlined and I’m loving the results. Keep ‘em coming.
Historical note: This is our first blog post.
Traveling throughout South Korea was not what I expected. I lived in the Philippines for a couple years, and I knew that its Spanish roots would be quite different than the rest of Asia. I was excited to get into some deeper Asian culture.
Korea has tried very hard to preserve its cultural history. Unfortunately, because this country has been the mid-point of so many major conflicts, most of its original palaces and structures have been destroyed, in most cases by the Japanese during occupation. What you can see in Korea are well researched and constructed replicas like the palace gate pictured below. I was sad to find out there aren’t many ancient structures left standing.
The people are doing fairly well in continuing some of the traditions as well. In an artsy area of Seoul called Insadong, you can find all the traditional Korean crafts done by those who are trying to protect the old ways. I decided to get a name stamp carved in a dusty old shop with framed yellowed newspaper articles featuring its owner as a traditional master carver.
In Korea most people have name stamps to use on official documents in addition to their signature– makes it harder to forge I guess. When consulting the secret book of Chinese characters, it turns out that my name, “Charles” happens to mean “good photographer”. If someone out there can verify that is what’s actually carved here, let me know 
We witnessed a few reenactments–very cool. The costumes struck me as artificially colorful. I wonder at what point they perfected the inks to get these neon blues and reds.
The large number of monks living in various temples throughout Korea seem to have the right idea. All of their outfits are color-less and I like their style. I can only imagine the deep conversation taking place here on current world problems–or maybe they are discussing fashion and what color will be the “new” grey.
