Dance!
I’ve been working with a few dancers in the studio as of late, learning how to capture motion in a studio setting. I love how these turned out.
5D MK II: Droooooooooolllllllll……..
I wonder if love for such a camera is considered adultery against my girlfriend? Shoot she may read this, but after you watch this video you will completely understand, and so will she.
CS4 and the ever changing software
I started getting into photography back when Photoshop 6 was just released. All I had in my possession at that time was a small brick that took photos at around 1 mega pixel and had no view screen. I gave that camera to a friend who now uses it as a door stop. Those where days of technology, when chat rooms ruled the internet and web camming was new and innovative.
Earlier this month Adobe announced that they where going to announce CS4 at a later date (yes they announced that they would be making an announcement) and the world rejoiced (or groaned depending on if you had just bought CS3 the week before). As with any new software upgrade there is a whole swath of advances and upgrades to small insignificant things you will never use or look at. You better not be using that liquefy tool!
Rob Galbraith made a nice little post about the upgrades to CS4 that effect us photographers and will of course be of interest to us.
Leading the list of changes for photographers in the new version of Photoshop for Mac and Windows is a revamped and much improved user interface that replaces various image adjustment dialogs with an Adjustments panel, simplified masking, a new Vibrance control, new panorama creation features and a new depth-of-field blending function plus quicker, smoother navigation of really large photos.
The Mac version gains 16 bits per colour printing, while the Windows version will operate as a 64 bit application for faster performance when large amounts of memory are required to complete a process.
Camera Raw 5, included with Photoshop CS4, adds localized adjustments (by painting or using a gradient to selectively apply the adjustment) and natural-looking vignette filtering even after a crop is applied.
Also included with Photoshop CS4 is Bridge CS4, which offers faster startup, faster browsing of RAW files (by optionally displaying the JPEG inside the RAW file), direct contact sheet and web gallery creation (gallery options include some from Photoshop Lightroom 2) and more.
Thank goodness for my pile of student loans and little card that says I’m still a student as the upgrades will be ship in the fourth quarter of 2008 for $699 ($999 for the Extended version). The upgrade from Photoshop CS and on will luckily only be $199 ($349 for Extended). The rest of the CS4 family will be relased then as well.
Check out Robs site for more info and a few screen shots.
Source: Adobe Photoshop CS4 officially unveiled
iphone/google Calendar sync
To me one or the most important areas of being a freelancer (be it photography, graphic design or even writing) is to remain organized and in touch with what is going on around you. A little while ago I picked up a iphone so I could receive e-mails on the go. Another large draw to the iphone for me was the calendar app build in. For my studio we use a Google Calendar to mark all of the studio bookings and events coming up. The iphone and google calendar didn’t play too nicely together though and any syncing had to be done through ical or outlook (two programs I don’t use). I’ve looked long and hard for a solution, today I found that solution.
If you’ve been living under a rock for a while, then you don’t know Thunderbird is basically Mozilla’s attempt at an e-mail manager. It basically has all the same pros/cons as Firefox, relatively stable and barebones, with access to a tons of add-ons for increased functionality. I’ve always wanted to use Thunderbird/Sunbird (Mozilla’s Calendar App), but with no direct integration with iTunes/iPhone, I forgot about them. That is until I found this awesome guide:
bfish.xaedalus.net ยป Stay in Sync with GCal and Thunderbird.
The guide details how to get Thunderbird working with Google Calendars. If you can’t bother to click on the previous links, you accomplish this using these 2 extensions for Thunderbird:
Lightning – Project Home
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631Lightning adds Calendar functionality into Thunderbird, and Provider lets you add online calendars into Lightning. Add those 2 together, and you have full access/control of Google Calendars through Thunderbird.
Where does this iPhone comes in? Through:
NuevaSync – Over the Air SynchronizationI’m sure most of you know or have seen this site by now, but basically it provides free push functionality from Google Calendar + Contacts to your phone. It’s pretty plainless to set up and it is a work on progress (no public calendars, no distinction of multiple calendars yet) but it does the job.
So add it all together and using Thunderbird you can manage your Google Calendar which get instantly pushed to your phone thanks to NuevaSync.
As someone who HATES Outlook (hate hate hate Outlook), this is the best thing I’ve found for my phone this month. Hope this is useful to others.
This has solved so many issues for me.
source: modmyi.com
Working in the wild
One of my favorite things about being a freelance photographer is the flexibility concerning work. the only boss I need to answer to is my self (and significant other when I become too lazy). This gives me absolute power over my working habits and environment. Personally I run a studio in the downtown core of the city I live in. My studio is fantastic and a place I am very comfortable in. The only draw back is it becomes a lonely place if I am the only one around. As an artist and commercial photographer I find I get a lot of my inspiration from the people around me, so being alone in a large studio is rarely productive.
I personally enjoy doing my work in a coffee shop or park, where people are mingling or wandering back and forth. I feel the distractions of coffee cups clanging and children screaming is more then welcoming as the gears inside my head churn out idea after idea. I redesigned my entire website in a coffee shop and often think of new projects in the same place.
Now obviously the public is not the best place for everyone to work and be productive, everyone just needs to find their own place. I have several friends who need a quiet room away from everyone else to feel the inspirational vibe flow through them.
Jarrah
HPS Strobist: Windsor Cars
