Archives / 2009 / October

7

Site News – Just Some Random Thoughts

I wanted to share with those of you that frequent the site (not via search or links to specific posts) some random thoughts and updates about the site. One thing that you may have noticed is the glaringly ugly Paypal button on the left hand side of the posts. Yep it’s ugly and I hate to ugly up the site but I really need to make the whole thing cost neutral in 2010. If you find anything of value about Aperture, etc. I would really appreciate anything that you...

1

Shooting Film – Efke 100

Well I finally took the plunge, I have searched out inexpensive film and decided to try Efke 100. Not just try it but calibrate it and get to know it. As you may have gathered I am a Kodak film shooter for the most part. The reason I am searching for cheaper film is that I am working on a few projects that are requiring quite a bit of 8×10 film. If you haven’t checked lately Kodak 8×10 is hideously expensive, not a big deal if I shoot a...

5

Aperture 3 aka Aperture X

As many of you may have heard over the last week or so a book appeared on Amazon that had Aperture X in the title. It was available for pre-order with availability in the Spring of 2010. This has led to a lot of chatter about an imminent release of the next major version of Aperture. The word on the street is the release will be rebranded as Aperture X to align it with OS X or something like that. While I have no specific knowledge of Apple’s release...

11

If You Are Really Into Photography You Must Listen To This

A couple of times I have lamented the passing of Polaroid Corp. Sure I really miss the materials that I shot, especially Polaroid Type 55 P/N in large format. I even miss the color materials that I of course tried but never really used in any quantities or as an artistic medium. The one thing that never came through in those passing mentions of how sad I was that some of the materials itself are gone was how sad I was that the Polaroid company itself was gone. Why...

2

The Most Important Images You Will Ever Make

A while ago I mentioned the concept of “important” images. My thoughts are that the pictures you make of people that are close to you are the most important ones that you will ever make. Not the abstract that win you third prize in the local art show. Not the ones that you make for advertisements that may pay the bills, etc. etc. Paying the bills is important but the images themselves are really not that important. Here is a small example of what I am talking about. Take...

3

Photographer’s Secret Subjects – That Other Thing You Shoot

I had a very interesting conversation on a discussion board over at APUG this week. I chucked up a couple of images that I shot while walking around. The shots were of stairs. Yep you heard that right – stairs. You see I for reasons unknown to me have some really strange compulsion to shoot stairs of all shapes and sizes. I have never made a “real” project out of it and am usually ill equipped to shoot them. Even without making it a concerted effort I have about...

3

Real Film – Yet Another Wedding Guy

Leo Patrone looks like he gets a bunch of work. I can see why, he has a great style for weddings. You really should check his work out. If you shoot family pictures just for yourself or professionally you owe it to yourself to get some ideas from this guy. Timeless and classic – meaning not tricky, it’s all about the people in the pictures. The pictures just get out of the way. Leo Patrone does classic work. He shoots film. I will bet money that 10 years from...

4

Real Film – Real Wedding Photographers

When I shoot film nowadays I am mostly a black and white guy because I love black and white. I ran across a couple of guys that shoot color film – commercially. In fact they do NO DIGITAL capture. Their work looks great and they use two different labs for processing. They don’t do this to be arty or even use it in their marketing to be some  sort of “retro”. In fact they claim to have lost a couple of weddings because the clients could not quite understand...

10

McNally Uses Aperture – Who Knew?

Maybe this is not news you all of you but McNally’s assistant just posted something about his workflow. Seems like he uses Aperture for all the organization amongst other things. Guess what the hitch is – he is a Nikon shooter and he does all of his RAW processing in Capture NX2. Given the pain in the ass factor this has to be a giant endorsement for some of Aperture’s wonderfulness vs. Lightroom and at the same time a giant indictment about Aperture’s RAW processing on NEF files. The...

3

Inspiration – Edward Weston

I wanted to share with some of you that my not have experienced Edward Weston’s Photographs that were one of the inspirations for me when I was young. Some famous some not so famous. These are the primary reason I love black and white photography. From an aesthetic point of view I gravitate much more towards Edward Weston or Seiff or Irving Penn or Richard Avedon than I do Ansel Adams. If you love photography and have not studied these guys work you really should. A well made book...

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