Real Life Photo Lessons

The other night I was reading through some other photo blogs. One post from Syl Arena – pixsylated – really caught my eye so I figured I’d share it with you.

“Lessons I didn’t learn in photo school“

Here are some of my favorite lessons on the list.

46. Creativity comes as a breeze before it comes as a gale.

82. If you don’t believe in your self, then don’t expect others to believe in you.

86. Embrace stress as the opposite of apathy.

96. Don’t confuse distraction with creativity.

Click the link to read all 100 lessons

Lessons I didn’t learn in photo school

3 Ways to Make Your Blog Better

We made it! 2010!

I’ve never been much of one for New Year’s resolutions, however, I definitely do think that there can never be too many good excuses to improve your life for the better.

Granted, making your blog better might not actually get posted under the “Improving Yourself” category, it could very well help improve someone else. So let’s get started.

Top Posts of 2009 (Happy New Year!)

Wow! Can you believe it?

Another year has come and gone already! I feel like it just started the other week. It seems like time flies be faster and faster with each year that passes.

Well, since I won’t be here to put up a post for Friday (I think it has something to do with it being New Year’s Eve), I figured I’d put up a post of posts, if you will.

What better way to ring in the new year than to look back at the one we’re leaving behind. So, in that spirit, I put together a list of some the more popular posts from this past year.

Let me know if you think I should have added some to the list. Heck, let me know if you think some of these shouldn’t be on the list.

Either way, I hope you’ve all had a wonderful year and have an even better time ringing in the new one.

Stay safe on the roads too.

• Vector Drawings
• (Visual) Proof of the Benefits of Moving the Light
• Depth of Field 101
• 3 Ways to Make your Photos Brighter Without Using a Flash
• How to Shoot Action Photos

http://ldbphotography.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/depth-of-field-101/

Try Something New

Sometimes you get in a creative rut in life. Sometimes you have trouble being productive. Sometimes you need to motivate yourself.

What better way to get out from behind all those issues than to try something new. I don’t necessarily mean to take photos of something different. You could do that.

What I’m saying is to take a break from everything for a bit and try something NEW.

Content Aware Scaling???

OK, I knew that CS4 was going to be amazing when I bought it last year and it really has been so far. Although, I saw something new for CS4 when looking through the videos on Adobe last year that I haven’t been able to figure out how to do (or find the videos for it again).

What could that be, you ask?

CONTENT AWARE SCALING!!!

I admit, it doesn’t sound too amazing when you just read the name, mainly because it sounds so nerdy. However, it will blow your mind when you know what it actually does.

In the past, whenever you wanted to resize a photo, you would have to crop it to get the composition the way your wanted, but not necessarily the size you wanted. Or you would have to resize it to the correct size, but necessarily have the composition you wanted.

CS4 partly took care of that through Camera Raw with cropping ratios. That way the frame would always be in a standard size after you were done. But it still didn’t help if you had all the components of a good photo, but they were too far apart. So you were really out of luck if that happened.

Not any more.

Notice how far apart the players are in the first photo. Now look at the second photo and see how much closer everything is.

Before:

After:

Now this is not a “get out of jail free” card by any means, but it will help recompose images that might not have worked otherwise. The more complex the image is, the harder it will be for the algorithms to sort things out in the fashion you want.

So start with smaller changes and see if it works before trying again.

Oh, and the special command that works all the magic is:

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C or Command+Option+Shift+C for Macs (after selecting with the marquee tool)

Photos for Christmas: Mine, All Mine

Yup, I’m still working through all the photos I took while out in Arizona.

I know, I know, it’s not exactly “holiday-esque”, but I didn’t want to do another post of photos from around the web.

On the second day of the trip we decided to take a tour of the ASARCO copper mine just outside of Tucson, AZ. Man, talk about a BIG hole in the ground.

It’s more than a quarter mile deep from the top and almost 2 miles wide. The pool at the bottom is even 80 or 90 feet deep past the surface.

Anywho, it’s now Christmas! and I need to go wrap some presents.

Click the link to view the photos.

Gallery: MINE, ALL MINE!!!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

With all the snow we got this past weekend, it’s kind of hard not to get int the holiday spirit. I mean, this will be the first white Christmas I’ve ever had since moving to the DC area.

To be honest, even though I’m sure I had one wayyyyyy back when I was little, this will be the first white Christmas I can ever remember.

So, since I’m in the festive mood (And since the snow is absolutely gorgeous) I figured I’d find some interesting snow photos on flickr to share with all of you.

[click the link to see more photos after the jump]

Photographing Christmas Lights

My Goodness! Talk about a lot of snow.

Anyone living in the mid-atlantic area knows exactly what I’m talking about. We received just under 2 feet of snow at my house, and but was that a lot of shoveling.

When you normally only get about 4 inches of snow a year, at most, you tend to forget how good a workout shoveling snow is. Especially when you do it for 3 hours!

Anyway, all the snow has really put me in the holiday mood. (Not to mention all the Christmas music).

Photos for Friday: Desert Beauty

Well, it’s Friday again. Man, what a week it has been.

I’m sure all of you want to relax just as much as I do. And, since that’s the case, I figured I’d stick it out and get another set of photos put up from my trip out to Arizona.

Surprisingly, all of these photos came from a 10 minute walk around my Grandparents’ house. OK, I was actually walking around a lot longer than that, but it wouldn’t have taken you more than 10 minutes to get to any of the spots in the photos.

I still can’t believe how gorgeous it is out there. Blue skies as far as the eye can see. Mountains sitting resolutely, securing the sky to where it belongs.

Harsh landscapes that will suck you dry in a matter of hours, yet full of plants and animals thriving everywhere you look.

Click the link to view the photos from my first day out in Arizona.

Gallery: DESERT BEAUTY

Christmas Extravaganza

This weekend I drove down to Richmond to partake in some festivities. Every year quite a few friends all get together to catch up and simply enjoy each others’ company in what we like to call the “Christmas Extravaganza”.

Unfortunately, there weren’t as many people joining in on the fun this year as in the past, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time.

Of course I brought my camera along for the ride. Although, I will admit I was a little more preoccupied with catching up with friends than taking photos. Good thing I forced myself to take a few shots though.

Click the link below to view the gallery.

Gallery: CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA ‘09