PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY.com

Some time ago, I wrote a brief post that mentioned some of the things I like to look for when buying a new lens. Among them, I mentioned that I usually take a look at the number of aperture blades a lens has since, generally speaking, more blades translates to better bokeh (blurring behind or in front of the subject).

Well, Klaus Shuler recently wrote me to point out that while aperture blades do affect the quality of bokeh, they can’t possibly do so when the lens is wide open. And he is absolutely right. More important than aperture blades, Klaus writes, are other lens qualities such as spherical aberration correction. I have no doubt he’s write on this, too, although looking for these measurements on a potential new lens purchase certainly get down to the nitty gritty in a way I’m not sure many of us would do.

Nevertheless, Klaus is trying to do something pretty exciting by standardizing a test for bokeh in various lenses. Essentially, he wants to do for bokeh what others have done for sharpness, etc. And that sounds like a great idea to me.

Check out Klaus’ website and you will see, as he acknowledges, he has “a long way to go.” But I’m excited to see him try and I’ll be watching what he develops very closely.

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CONTACT: Casey Sanders (212) 843-9341 / csanders@rubenstein.com
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE INTRODUCES ‘MY SHOT’
INDIVIDUALIZED PHOTO WEB PAGES FOR USER-GENERATED CONTENT

NEW YORK (Feb. 28, 2008) — National Geographic Magazine has announced their latest innovation, “My Shot.” “My Shot” allows photographers of all skills to create their own web page at www.ngm.com to display their best photographs.

“My Shot” members are able to upload and save up to 100 photographs on their own “My Shot” page. Members will also be able to use a drag-and-drop version of NGM.com’s cutting-edge jigsaw puzzle generator on their pages. Any photo saved to “My Shot” can be turned instantly into a jigsaw puzzle. There is also a custom version of a popular memory-sorting game that users can create from their own photos.

“My Shot” members can also submit their photos to National Geographic’s popular “Your Shot” feature, where a dozen photos are selected each day by editors to appear on-line, with those photos being rated by readers. At the end of the month, the winning photo will be published in National Geographic Magazine itself, which reaches 40 million readers worldwide.

For more information, log onto http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot.

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Most of us have tried or use Flickr. Others of us Photobucket, Shutterfly, a custom dot-Mac account. But I’m afraid when it comes to sharing ones photography online, I’m guilty of thinking there are just a few options.

Nope.

Try one hundred options. Seriously.

Over at the Virtual Hosting blog, Laura Milligan has compiled what certainly must be the most comprehensive list of online photography sharing sites. And she’s been thorough enough to break them out by category (Popular, Community, Travel, etc.) Very cool and you should definitely check it out.

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Some of you may be interested in this if you haven’t seen it elsewhere. Looks pretty cool to me:

Contact: Andy Shearer (212) 843-8061 / ashearer@rubenstein.com

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE’S ONLINE SITE LETS VISITORS CHOOSE TOP READER-SUBMITTED PHOTOGRAPHS
Monthly Winner’s Photograph Will Appear in Print in
National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic magazine’s Web site, www.ngm.com, has launched an online version of the popular “Your Shot” page, where National Geographic photo editors feature two reader-submitted photos in the magazine every month. Currently, both photographs are chosen by editors at National Geographic. Starting in October, Web users who visit www.ngm.com will have the power to choose one of the reader-submitted photographs that appear on the magazine’s “Your Shot” page.

Online, the feature is called the Daily Dozen. Visitors can go to www.ngm.com to view a group of daily top-12 images shot by amateur photographers. Images for the Daily Dozen are chosen from photographs submitted to National Geographic by photography enthusiasts from around the world (go to ngm.com/yourshot for details on how to submit a photo).

Each week, visitors to ngm.com can vote on a gallery of images from the prior week. At the end of the month all votes will be tallied, and the photograph with the highest cumulative ranking will be published in an upcoming issue of National Geographic magazine. Viewers can vote for each week’s images one time only.

Check it out.

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As photographers, it’s easy to forget that painters have been doing this a lot longer than we have. And by “this” I mean making images.

But it’s always worth examining the techniques of master painters because some of what they do — arguably even a lot of what they do — is directly transferable to the medium of photography.

The beautiful painting I’m featuring here is the work of an outstanding Vietnamese painter named Dao Hai Phong. His paintings have a very unique and beautiful style and if you’d like to see more of you can check it out here. I highly recommend that you do.

Dao is known for his bold use of colors and it’s exactly that which prompts me to write about him here. I have written before about the power of using color in your photographs. And I don’t just mean shooting in color. I mean using color.

I could go off into a long elaboration about color theory here. And certainly there are many resources on the Web if you want to learn more about it. But the bottom line is that colors are like people. You meet one, and it’s sure to introduce you to another. And some get your attention before others.

Why is this important? Because in any photographic composition, just as in any painting, the human eye will be drawn to certain colors first. Take a look at Dao’s beautiful painting above. Where does your eye go first? Continue Reading »

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I’ve never quite understood how “shooting” became the verb of choice for photography. I shoot hoops. I shoot pool. I shoot a gun (well, I don’t but obviously some do). Since every one of those activities involves some sort of propelled object, the word shooting just doesn’t seem to describe what we do with cameras very well.

But enough semantics… because at least with one type of photography, the word “shooting” does come close: when we shoot through stuff! And it’s something I’ve been doing a lot of lately.

What I’m talking about is placing some sort of object between your camera and your subject - either partly or completely covering your subject depending on the degree of transparency of the barrier. In the two images I’m including in this post, you can see what I mean. I shot the image above of a Vietnamese woman working a traditional weaving machine at the annual Smithsonian Folk Life Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C. If you’ve never been to that festival, it’s worth trying to time your visit to Washington around it, since it’s right on the mall and a lot of fun, and you can still easily get to the museums and monuments.

Anyway, a number of photographers positioned themselves around this woman but as far as I know I was the only one to position myself behind the machine where a clear shot of her would be impossible. But a clear shot was not my intent. I wanted foreground. I wanted depth. And I wanted a degree of mystery, which I think this photograph captures.

In this second image, an otherwise straightforward portrait, a semi-transparent curtain hung between my camera and the model. Again, I think it adds a great deal of mystery and lifts the portrait above the norm.

What are the risks when you want to make images like these with your camera? Continue Reading »

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