Jun 30 2009
You think you have a nice studio?
The ultimate studio for stock photography. I marvel at the genius of this setup….
Feb 22 2009
Gardens
Today, I visited the Dallas Botanical Gardens for the first time. Now, I know that a man shouldn’t be skipping around in gardens, but I’m a photographer so cut me some slack. This turned out to be one of the most beautiful weather days I can remember. I spent two hours enjoying all the sights and smells of the various gardens and sculptures. If you get the chance to go, I would imagine it will be particularly stunning in a month or so, after the spring bloom. Here was one of my photos from the day. Follow the link below to see a few more.
Jan 15 2009
Great photographer - Steller Photos
I am so impressed with his work. Check out his site.
Jan 14 2009
The Top 100 Photography Blogs - Photography Colleges
This is an outstanding collection of photography website links. You’ll probably want to bookmark this page and come back to it in the future (if you’re interested in photography).
Dec 14 2008
Mastering your camera - Great tutorials
I get asked pretty often what all the crazy settings are on top of cameras. M, Av, Tv, etc. Usually, people buy a nice camera and leave it on Auto. If you learn just a little about what the concepts of Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, and flash, your pictures will be exponentially better.
The following two hyperlinks are some of the best, easy-to-understand tutorials I’ve ever read explaining these basics. Read it with your camera in hand and try them out. If you can practice with the various settings for just a few minutes here and there, you’ll unlock the mystery, and then it starts getting really exciting to take photos. I used to always hate that I had to hope my camera would figure out what I wanted to do. Now I know exactly how to get the shot I want by combining several moving variables.
Nov 07 2008
What in the world is going on here?
The strangest photo I’ve ever seen. It’s circulating the web and no one has a clue where it came from. UPDATE: Here’s the link to an explanation. Weirdo!!!
Nov 07 2008
Crazy dog playing with toy - Captions?
May 27 2008
Magically Delicious
Branding in this day and age is quite difficult. You can see the evolution of media dating back to the days when families would gather around the family radio and listen to their shows. Often there were only one or more stations to choose from. Then came tv, still you had only a handful of stations, but now you had tv and radio. The original sponsors of tv and radio got the deluxe commercial pitch. They unabashedly promoted the sponsor and people bought into it. As the choices increased and the show sponsorship was fractioned, it became an issue of buying massive amounts of air time and print for a couple to successfully launch an d sustain a brand.
Then, the internet enters the picture. By this point in society, we are so bombarded with messages and choices, we are not allowed the luxury of having a brand emblazoned into our subconscious unless it is in every form of media and cleverly done. We have to be handed units of software for free and treated like we’re greek gods or we won’t acknowledge a company’s existence. The age of the consumer has arrived.
It’s two different worlds: simplified, but monopolized corporations or chaotic, overwhelming array of small/medium size businesses and large companies split into smaller brands. Both have their pros and cons, but like everything in life, I’m sure a balance is probably the best. Here’s a blog entry from Seth Godin talking about this subject…
From Seth Grodin’s Blog:
Magically delicious
I was talking to a teenager this weekend about the attributes of Lucky Charms. It had never occurred to her that they were magically delicious. In fact, they’re a lot like most breakfast cereals, except for the marshmallows.
Some marketers are still relying on the idea that they can drill a catch phrase or benefit or USP or differentiation into our heads through ceaseless ads. It sure worked on me.
Is this the core strategy behind the growth of your business?
Not sure it’s going to work any more.
May 23 2008
Weezer strikes gold with new video
This is absolutely brilliant. Weezer once again knocks the ball out of the park with this video that ingeniously features tons of the last couple years’ viral internet stars.
May 18 2008
Strobist: A fantastic site about lighting in photography
I came across a great site called Strobist. This would only be slightly interesting to you if you are into photography. Granted it sounds kind of like a study in drywall if you’re not. For all of the knowledge that’s out on the web and all of the photographers there are out there, there is a remarkable lack of good instructional content.
Kevin’s Theory:
Photographers are “starving artists”. They make barely enough money to survive, so the really good ones are probably not working day jobs outside of photography and thus are not bankrolling it. Consequently, they are always hustling for ways to make money. Paying $29.95 for a crappy video about lighting is acceptable to all of us photographer wannabes because we can’t find the cool instructional websites out there like you might in other industries. The “freemium” model of giving away software in hopes of relationship building hasn’t caught up with this group, yet.
Full circle…I really appreciate smart guys and gals doing free blogs about their interests, just because they love sharing knowledge.
May 14 2008
