PhotoWalkPro

Congratulations to Michael J. and Jan W. for guessing that I am in Guatemala. Extra brownie points to Jan for guessing that part of the series of photographs were taken in Guatemala City, based on the architecture.  I’m getting ready to run out the door and catch my ride to Chichicastenango to visit the markets, which are supposed to be amazing. Then it’s down to Lake Atitlan for a couple of days. If I have time (and Internet) this evening I will cover all of the locations that I have visited and post some more photographs.

A short time back I came across a photo documentary of a teenage soldier. The Denver Post project tells the story of young Ian Fisher, a teenager from Colorado who is searching for manhood and a meaning to his life. Besides the fascinating storyline, the thing that really drew me in was the amazing images from Craig F. Walker, a photojournalist for the Post. Walker’s images chronicled the journey of Fisher as he dealt with family, friends, loves and losses as he went from recruit to soldier in Iraq and everything in between.

If you have some free time this weekend, take a few minutes to be inspired by a truly amazing photographic storyteller. You will quickly see why Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished example of feature photography.

You can see the entire Denver Post feature, including the photographs, videos and more by following this link. It’s nice to see that the art of visual storytelling is alive and well.

When I got home yesterday there was a USPS box waiting for me. I tore it open and found a brand new Spider Holster system. A little while back I wrote about getting one to test out on the photowalk and now I can’t even wait that long. I think I’m gonna have to head out this weekend and give it a try, it’s just that cool.  In fact, it’s so cool that my son was wearing it around the house doing quick draws with the holster and camera plate.

So here’s what came in the box, one belt with a hip pad, one camera plate, one Spider holster, and one Spider pin. Assembly was easy and there is even a handy hex-key that slides into the camera plate.

I’ll be trying it out soon and be sure to give you a full review when I have thoroughly tested it out.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I have an Author Page over at Amazon.com. It’s actually a pretty cool thing they do for book authors by letting us showcase all of our books in one location. Included on the page are all of my books, including the Kindle version of the D5000 book, a short bio about me, my blog feed, and a customer discussion forum.  If you happen to look really closely you might even find a hint about some future project that I might be planning. I also have the ability to add videos to the page, which I have given some consideration to and might be adding a few in the future. Perhaps a few quick “helpful hint” videos on some of the cameras I have written about.  We’ll see. In the mean time, check it out and let me know what you think. I would love to hear your feedback. You can find my page by clicking here.

Photo by Sandy Troiano – Click on it to see a larger version

I was walking by my friend Sandy’s desk the other day when something colorful caught my eye.  She had this great background image on her screen of some incredibly colorful flowers.  It was a great picture and I thought it was something that she downloaded to get herself in the mood for Spring.  When I told her that I liked her screen she smiled and said, “Do you like it? I took it with my phone.”  Needless to say I was shocked.  I have seen some cool pictures from iPhones before but they are usually small images that have been posted on Twitter or Facebook.  This image was filling up a 21″ monitor and it was just astounding.

Maybe it’s because of my history with digital cameras that reaches back to some of the earliest professional cameras to come to the market. I am still finding it hard to believe that the technology has come so far in such a short period of time.  It doesn’t all seem that long ago that I was taking pictures with a Kodak DCS 420 digital SLR camera costing thousands of dollars (about $11,000 in 1994 to be more precise). Now I was looking at something that came from a Blackberry and it was better than anything that ever came out of my Kodak.

It really makes you wonder where we will be in another 16 years.