Eye Candy for Bridge Lovers

Yeah, I love bridges. This set of images at Weeklyshot.org is simply delightful.

Some Random Tunes

Billy Joe Labelle... sounds like an urban country singer... but it aint.

My favorite song...

Oh, what the hell... one more time.

Amazing....

Julian Beever takes sidewalk chalk art to, well, a whole new level.

The Best of Portrait Photography

Well, maybe not the absolute best, but a very nice set of images.
Dark Roasted Blend: The Best of Portrait Photography

Vindication!

... of a sorts. I am a rabid fan of new technology, yet most of what I own is classic (G4 and G5), well worn (My Pro-Edge Server) and somewhat custom (Visualville's awesome Photoshop machine). My vehicle is over 10 years old (and getting a cool facelift and interior soon), and I like things with a sense of timelessness over the faddish and 'hip'.

I use old strobes, old lights, old reflectors... sometimes creating new tools out of old tools. It is the creation I enjoy. As you all know, I love, love, love music. I do not own an IPod. My kids all have them, even the wife... but I still crank up the CD player and prefer talk radio during the day, firing up ITunes for some Coltrane and Evans. So it is with a smile that I read this rant by Joel Johnson, former editor at Gizmodo.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Joel Johnson Returns...to Spank Us All for Supporting Crap - Gizmodo: "Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don't need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn't do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.

You want to know the punchline? The average Joe that makes up the market is smarter than you saps. The market-at-large waits until a clear leader emerges, then takes a modest plunge. You may think you're making up the 'bleeding edge' of 'gadget pimpatude' but you're really just a loose confederation of marks the consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy money. 'Give me the latest version,' you coo, hiking up your skirt another inch over your exposed wallet. 'Point Oh One upgrades make me so hot.'"

New PHOTOtool launches

A new, crisper look and feel. Less copy, more multimedia.

Daniel and I are very pleased to announce the relaunch of our public site for the PHOTOtool. We have removed much of the copy and decided to deliver the punch with audio and video. If you take a look, check the 'demo' page for movies as well as the "how it works" page. We are trying to use the multimedia format instead of all the copy that existed. We will be adding more videos in the upcoming days.

If you are looking for a way to sell your images online, please take a few minutes to check us out. We feel we offer great flexibility, ease of use and a inexpensive price point.

You MUST see this...

Technology becomes an extension of the human touch. Wow. (Ok, picture working in Photoshop with this kind of interaction...) Thanks for the tip, Adam.

Jeff Han on TED Talks: "Jeff Han is a research scientist for New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Here, he demonstrates—for the first time publicly—his intuitive, 'interface-free,' touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA."

Classical Music Takes a Hit.

This is kind of amazing. Technology will probably be along soon to check images as well. My favorite line is: "Hatto's husband, who produced and released them, says he cannot explain the similarities." Read the whole thing...

New Scientist Technology Blog: iTunes fingers musical fraud: Last week, a critic at the Gramophone magazine got surprise when he put a Hatto recording of Lizt's 12 Transcendental Studies into his computer. The iTunes player identified the disc as being recorded by another pianist, Lászlo Simon. He dug out the Simon album and found it sounded exactly the same as the Hatto one.

Sunday Jazz

Dennis Chambers and the Buddy Rich Memorial Orchestra starts things off in a big way.

Now up - Greg Bissonet and the BR Memorial Orchestra. Great tenor solo from Steve Marcus.

Buddy sets afire in this short tune from 1980.

Buddy gives a lesson... sheesh.

Did You Know That Magnum Photos had a Blog?

Well, you do now.

What a Marvelous Post

This is a post with a long quote from David Leeson, Dallas Morning News. His short, but extremely powerful post on the changing world of Photojournalism gives us a wide-eyed glimpse into the shifting paradigms and new challenges facing shooters. The entire post is worthy of reading several times, but these two paragraphs stand out as reminders that what we held for granted may not be so carved in stone.

I knew that still photos would remain forever - the undisputed champion for visual reporting. Actually, it could be the victor of ALL forms of journalistic reports. But, of course, I am prejudiced to the eloquence of the unmoving image that seems to move hearts and minds better than any.

And taking a look at how the Photojournalists are dealing with change (or not) gives those of us in commercial and personal shooting a measuring stick for our own areas. Have you started shooting video? Do you carry a point-and-shoot (some are really amazing, you know)? Have you started offering other products / services to clients? Have we taken the time to discover what those services may be? Lots of questions to think about. This paragraph really drives home what happens when an industry becomes myopic and navel gazing begins to be the mantra.

If you're still struggling with this then take a look at your average construction worker paid to build a house. Imagine showing up at the job site with only a circular saw. You walk around discussing RPM and torque. You talk about a recent seminar you attended about proper saw techniques. But, then, the boss approaches and asks you to hammer a nail. Unfortunately, you don't have a hammer and your beloved circular saw won't do the job. The moral of the story is that the purpose of the job was to get a house built and not to cut some wood.

And from Multimediashooter:

We are at an exciting crossroads in photojournalism, so why are we just creating bad TV for the web? I have the utmost respect for our TV brethren, but I think the broadcast model is broken FOR THE WEB. So why are we following it? I believe this is our only chance to shake things up. This has nothing to do with talking heads or even video for that matter. Even our ass (audio slide shows) are boring, filled with voice of God narrators or the subjects themselves telling us about the story, instead of us showing the story.

I think this post should make us all, designers, photographers and writers, think a bit more about what we do. Some of us may reflect, research and come to the conclusion that we are fine right where we are. Some may discover ideas and tools to add to our arsenal of offerings. Both results are certainly good ones... because we stopped navel gazing and started a dialogue (internally and externally) about what we are and what we do.

Yeah, Learnin' a New Program Has Always Been Hard

While some of us debate going to Vista, or changing it up to Mac, we must remember what the IT help desks of long ago must have looked like. Gosh, we take so much for granted. (And special smiles to any of you who have ever taught software use.)

Back to the Future... or just back...

This is an interesting thread discussing the impossibility of computers having a Gig of ram (sorry Scott). Of course this was a thread of fairly knowledgeable science students waaaaaaaay back in 1997. It is a glimpse into the reality of negative thinking and impossibility living. Note the smug assurance of some posters telling the folks how asinine it is to even conjecture such a thing.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2679gx

Of course in the 70's and early 80's we were told that there would be mass starvation (Ehrich) and literally no minerals left on earth with literally no open land left (Ehrlich, others).

Of course, we were also facing an imminent, life destroying ice age... but, that's another story.

Don't believe the naysayers. They simply love telling you you cannot. In most cases you can.

Professional Photographers Have It All, Man

It's a "Crazy" Valentines Day

The road, the wind and the bike. Oh, and a guy lip-syncing a stupid song. Just doesn't get any better than that.

Feel the Rush! Cure the Rash!

How Does This Work?

An interesting marketing situation that just confounds the hell out of me. It makes no sense, even to itself, and I am wondering how this will work for the folks involved. (Before I start this post I want to state that I don't give a crap about the Dixie Chicks bruhaha... that is for a different blog post. This is a look at the dynamics of a marketing situation.)

The Dixie Chicks are a product, a brand. The brand decided to make statements that resulted in a backlash from their clients and customers. Free speech begot free speech... and that pissed some off. Free speech had been redefined as "I say. You listen. No repercussions." Anybody in business knows that if you have the 'right' to piss off your clients, and they have the right to go somewhere else for their product. (New 'Coke'?)

The DC found themselves on the ropes and struggling to keep audiences. They stayed true to the beliefs they expounded (refreshing, most simply offer lame excuses), and laid low for a while hoping to weather the storm. A candid interview where they totally dissed the people who were their mainstay customers then was aired and they faced a renewed attack of consumer retaliation.

Last year they released a new album and began a concert tour. The part of the industry that had before shunned them now welcomed them. But not for the music, for the statements. Pop music welcomed them in spirit, but the music still sounds country, so many many pop consumers remained disinterested. The DC sold 1.9 million of their album to date. That is fairly good sales. Compared to their earlier releases, it is pitiful. They had sold 5 times that amount in earlier sales. They had more cancelled concert dates than any other performers in recent history.

Now we have the DC's claiming vindication of their stance as they won 5 Grammys. But the voters for the Grammies aren't the people who buy the music and the concert seats, but a tiny slice of insiders. Is that what sells for vindication these days? Vindication of what? Wouldn't vindication come in the form of concert sales, album sales, readers polls and radio playlists?

Marketing has taken interesting turns in the past, but this one really amuses and amazes me. Several far more popular and equally political performers were passed over because the members of the Academy wanted to 'make a point' (reported in the NY Times) about the DC and their challenges. I thought they were supposed to vote for the artist, not the politics.

I don't care, and actually only watched about 3 minutes of the show. I personally think that awards given by insiders to insiders are rather boring and self indulgent. I prefer the wild and wooly marketplace of the consumers... even tiny niche consumers.

Summing up:

• Brand commits faux-pas
• consumers revolt
• Brand digs in
• consumers revolt
• Brand attempts recovery without change
• consumers remain in revolt
• Brand remains defiant
• consumers slip from revolt to ambvilence
• Brand gets Kudos from Industry insiders
• consumers.... well, we'll have to see

On an aside; I thought the Grammy's were about music. Music. Now we have industry insiders stating in the NYT that they voted to 'send a message' to the country music establishment. Ok, great. So the musicians who lost did so because they hadn't provoked some wing of the music establishment. And those that won did so because they took a stand, put their asses on the line and took a mighty hit. Got it.

Excuse me, I thought it was about music.

That's kinda cool.

Well, I am a big Carrie Underwood fan, and an even bigger fan of Ornette Coleman. So tonight on the only 3 minutes of the Grammy's that I watched, there was Coleman getting a Lifetime Achievement award and giving the new artist award to Underwood. That was a moment in time.
Ornette...


...and Carrie...

Without resorting to math...

...Jessica Hagy presents a quirky look at the world.

Sometimes Average is Good and other inspiring charts on notecards...

Have you met any Sheepwalkers lately?

And do you see any of yourself in the description. If not great. If yes, then we are on the way to fixing it. Seth talks about people in business, and I think it applies really well to a lot of us in the 'creative' industries. Sort of an oxymoron to be a 'creative sheepwalker' but... you gotta admit they are out there.

Sure, it is damn difficult to step up, step out, move forward... take a flying leap... but it may certainly be what is called for. Demanded really. When you find yourself sheepwalking, pinch yourself somewhere and turn left... or right... or start leaping about screaming the words to "wild thing"... Just. Don't. Keep. On. Keepin'. On. (One of the most destructive and more stupid of the sayings we brought forward from another time.)

Seth's Blog: [I just reread this, and I'm betting some people will think I'm being way too harsh. That depends. It depends on whether you believe that people have a considerable amount of innate potential, that work is too time-consuming to be dull and that organizations need passion (from employees and from customers) if they want to grow. If you believe that the relationship between marketers and the people they touch is important enough to invest in. I think if you believe all that, if you believe in yourself and your co-workers, then this isn't nearly harsh enough. We need to hurry. We need to wake up.]

10 Things Photographers can do with FilmLoop

If you are a reader of the blog, or have attended my workshops, you know I am a big fan of Filmloop and a few other image sharing platforms. I cruised around Filmloop and found some folks doing interesting things with the tools. My previous post on multimedia had a few emails stating that they weren't technical and such... Ok, here you go. With Filmloop you can create stories with text and images. That is a start at creating online presentations. I have posted these 10 things that photographers can use Filmloop for increasing income and visibility. Remember, these Filmloops can be embedded in blogs, web sites, emails, and social sites like MySpace, so they are very viral.

1. Sell your client on an advertorial approach. If there's a business, there's a story. Shoot it, write it and produce it on Filmloop. This soft approach can be very effective.




2. Send affiliated leads from publications. How about the top home photos from a "living" magazine, or the most requested hiking trails from an outdoor magazine. Links back to the magazine of course. In this particular case, it is swimsuit shots from a sports magazine.

3. Ebay listings. If you sell a lot of items on E-Bay, or if you have decided to get smart and sell images on Ebay, this can really increase your visibility.



4. If you sell fine art photography, the Filmloop tool could be used to create an online folio of images. This can be very effective when you link it to your online galleries, and the viral nature of the Filmloop can extend your reach.


5. Create a models portfolio. If you work with models, this is a great way to build an online portfolio and get some interest in your work. Models can link to their OneModelPlace or Model Mayhem accounts and your visibility is raised.



6. Real Estate shooters can help their clients by creating a Filmloop for higher end homes. Take more pictures, add descriptions




7. If you sell stock photographs, Filmloop provides a fantastic, free way for you to show sets of images and get them in front of a lot of folks. In this example, a stock agency has watermarked their images for protection.



8. Share technical advice, lighting schemes, camera profiles... teach someone how to make an image better. Show the settings you used to shoot the image, and help rid the world of underexposed kitty pictures. You could share software tips as well.



9. Resort and Travel photographers. Here's another way to help your clients with their destination and resort marketing. You have the shots, all you need is the copy, a map or two, some shots of the amenities in the area and you end up with a multimedia show of images and information that can be virally exposed to potential millions.


10. Last, but not least... your portfolio. A fun and easy way to share your portfolio, let folks add it to their pages, embed it in email, blogs and your site. There are so many ways to share images with Filmloop that it becomes fun looking for more.

While there are lots of tools that let you do similar, Filmloop has a very nice interface and is simple enough that the neophyte computer user can jump in and get one posted in a few minutes. Some advice: pick your images carefully and name them with an order so you can create a flow (and if you don't get it right, you can resort in Filmloop), get them ready with color and sharpening and prepare a little text that lets folks know who you are. That way the viral part of your Filmloop will lead them back to you. Have fun!

My kinda guy!

Just read it... makes you smile.

NYC Cabbie Returns Bag of Diamond Rings, NYC Cabbie Tracks Down Passenger Who Left Behind Bag With 31 Diamond Rings; Given $100 Reward - CBS News: "'I'm a hard worker,' the soft-spoken cabbie said. 'I enjoy my life. I'm satisfied. I'm not going to take someone else's money or property to make me rich. I don't want it that way.'

'When I find something left in my cab, and I can return it to the owner, I feel very happy. I feel proud,' he said."

Anna Nicole RIP

Putting aside her extravagance and silliness, she was an amazing subject for photographers. A sad, too short life.

Think about it

Amazing work being done with digital images, small video cameras, $20 mics and a video editing software. A good audio recorder can do wonders as well. And if you haven't thought about multimedia as a new source of income, maybe you should think about it. Maybe.

For two decades, he was the force behind the sound of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Co-composer, arranger and right-hand man, Billy Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century. (independentlens.com)

In this video, Jeff Han and Phil Davidson demonstrate how a multi-touch driven computer screen will change the way we work and play.

Go experience "The Pulp".

"Interesting stories from around the world, hand-picked by Daylife." And they are stills, video, mixed media, audio... you know... the works.

There are some great tools for doing this stuff, and you should take some time to at least explore them. From Multimediashooter.com

"Just a quick post to share with you some of the applications that make my life as a mutlimedia shooter/producer easier. Some of these you've no doubt heard about, but hopefully one or two will be new to you and help you as they do me. They range in price from FREE to about $70, with the exception of Squeeze which is about $400, but any department doing video should NOT be without this app."

I Love Her work

You may want to go on over and take a look at Sally Mann's work on a very neat online gallery site.

Festival of the Photograph: "One of America's most renowned photographers, she has exhibited work around the world and was designated 'America's Best Photographer' in 2001 by Time magazine."

Marketers Think We Are Really Stupid

Some marketers suck. They really do.

I have grown terribly weary of the Google AdWord mess. Yes, mess. Do a search on any term, and you get a list of Google spam pages. You know, those pages that have nothing but links but are really AdSense links.

Some of the biggest companies allow these spammers to co-op their good name. Search for nearly anything and you get listings that say something like "Best Prices on Banana Peels" or some such crap. You know they don’t have it, or carry what you are looking for, they just want you to click on their link so they can get 'traffic'.

I am looking to market my photography seminars outside of the local area, so as I am doing my adword research I find this sorry list of sites that have little to nothing to do with ’photography seminars’, they just want, you know, the traffic. They buy the words and then hope that people will be suckered into clicking the link. Yep, gonna buy me a 'photography workshop' at Amazon, or maybe I should go and bid on one at Ebay, and have it delivered in a couple of weeks.


This is the kind of thing that does not service the web well at all. It is short-sighted, lame and frankly insulting. I will however, click on every one of them when I find ’em. Let them pay for their affront with their cash.

Testing a new Posting tool

This is a test post from a cool little editor available at www.giveawayoftheday.com today, Feb. 6, 2007. If you blog, and especially if you have several blogs, you should try this little guy out.

Vivitar Brings It!

For those of you who are really interested in making an impact with lighting without a huge impact to your wallets, take a look at the newly released Vivitar 285HV. Power, convenience and flexibility for under a hundred bucks.
Vivitar 285HV Auto Professional Flash

Update: David has an indepth review at the Strobist today.

"Make it work"

As designers, photographers and marketers, the "make it work" mantra is one we know very well. We don't have forever to do it, and most of the time we don't have the freedom to do it any way we want. What we do is "make it work" every time. Short post, but interesting.

"Make it work" - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "There, we did it. We’re out of the closet as Project Runway fans. Not only is the show well done, it offers a bit of Getting Real flavor to boot.

According to Forbes.com, PR “portrays fundamental truths about creative work.”"

Rick Lee in San Francisco

... and shooting up a storm. Take a few and visit his site. The guy makes great images at the supermarket... imagine San Francisco!

Multitasking - a view

Great post over at "Creating Passionate Users". We all need to discover ways to get more done and multitasking can be a method to achieve that. But multitasking can be quite a challenge.

But where I once believed that the myth of multitasking was about time (that doing four things simultaneously takes much longer than to do those same four things in sequence), scientists now know it's also about quality. And it gets worse... it's not just that the quality of those four things in parallel will suffer, it's that your ability to think and learn may suffer. Some researchers believe that all this constant, warpspeed, always-on multitasking is causing young people, especially, to become less able to follow any topic deeply. (more on that in another post)

Sunday Evening Concert

Lovely ladies for after the 'big game."

SEO for Photographers: Al Payne, Architectural Photographer

I just finished reworking Al Payne's website to be more effective in the search engines. I will note immediately that I did not do the design of the site, it was handled inhouse. I took their previous design and modified it so that it would be more acceptable to search engines and to help them design an effective online marketing campaign. You cannot effectively market your website if you cannot leverage the tools used by the internet community.

I cannot go into what was done to the site, but I can tell you some overall changes. The original site was all graphics, with nonsensical image names and file names. The site had metatags, but they weren't used effectively. I removed over 300 graphic items and replaced them with less than a dozen without effectively changing the design. We brought in simple CSS driven code, and added a cool Javascript portfolio area that will allow for very easy updating of the portfolio images. We found ways to present dynamic content without a drain on Al's staff, and will soon start on an active project to move the site up the listings.



Effective? Well, when I started the project www.paynephotographic.com had a page rank of 2. Backward links in Google showed no inbound links. The site was totally graphical so Google had given up on the site. We fixed that, tweaked the details and prepared the site for going live. We launched last evening at 4pm.

This morning at 8 am I visited Al's site to make sure everything was still up and going well. His page rank is now a 4, and the backward links page in Google has 2 full pages. Simply changing the home page to a non-graphic page, adding text and correct metatags... in other words, careful attention to detail made a huge difference in his page rank... overnight! See last graphic.


For now I will simply share some screen shots of Al Payne's new SE friendly site

"Man the gates... they're coming!"

Designers worried when "Desktop Publishing" became popular. Writers fretted about "Self Publishing." Newspapers loathe "blogs". Photographers bemoan the advent of digital photography for the masses. Closed groups suddenly find the 'masses' streaming into their domain, creating content... blurring the bar of exclusivity.

Hey TV Madison Avenue... Welcome to the pity party.

Voting has closed. The results are being tallied. Thanks to all the fans who participated.
Watch the big game on February 4, 2007 to see which DORITOS commercial wins.
Check out the five potential winners below. Click each finalist’s name to read their story."

Mighty Imaging helps Photography Groups

Mighty Imaging has always supported photographers groups from commercial to wedding. Now they have created two widgets that will be able to further help associations and groups no matter where they are. These affiliate tools will help groups support themselves with increased revenue.

The Mighty Imaging "MightyBigPrint" uploader and "MightyFlickr" tools are simple widgets that let consumers, pro-ams and professionals upload their images directly to Mighty Imaging for printing and shipping. The affiliate program lets the association share in the revenue from images uploaded from their sites.


A group or association simply has to sign up at Mighty Imaging and then place a little snip of code on their site. That link will send users to MI's tools with a code identifier that let's them know where the order came from. This is similar to Amazon style affiliate programs.

"We track the user id and then cut them a check for 10% of the orders received," says Stephanie Maus from MI. "It's really easy, and now associations can share in revenue generated by their members here at MI."

Individual website owners and bloggers can also sign up for the MI widgets. "We think it is a great way to provide some support for the industry," says Peter Fradin, MI owner. "We are a small company and this lets us have more impact on more groups."

If you are a member of a photography association, group or club, visit Mighty Imaging and sign up for their affiliate program.