PhotoWalkPro

Here’s a few things I came across that you might find interesting and maybe inspiring -

Bigger is Better -

How many pixels were in your last image? If you are a select group of Hungarians, the answer just might be 70 billion. With sponsorshop from Epson, Sony, and Microsoft, a group of hungarians have created the largest 360° panorama in the world. I’ve always been fascinated by gigapixel images and this one really takes the cake. You can see the image in all it’s detailed glory here.

Long Distance Dedication -

If there’s one thing I like more than gigapixel images, it’s time-lapse videos. I just find the process of compressing time into a smaller space to be incredibly cool. I’ve been known to make a few time-lapse videos in my time but nothing compares to this incredible walk across America.

Now, if you thought that was cool, check out this “making of” video to see the incredible story of how this amazing project came to be.

Color in Motion -

You might know Julianne Kost as the Adobe Photoshop Evangelist but did you know that she is an incredibly talented photographer and artist? A couple of years ago she released a book called Window Seat, which featured landscape images made from her years of accumulating frequent flyer miles. Some of her recent work though is just downright fascinating. Her series is called Motion Color and after looking at the images, it’s hard not to believe that she didn’t fashion them in Photoshop. The reality is that all of these shots are straight from the camera (except for maybe a little color and exposure tweaking). You can spend a few quality minutes checking out all of her shots by clicking here.

Free Lightroom Learning for Photowalkers -

Did you participate in one of the 1100 photowalks this past weekend? If so then you should have received a personal invite to join Scott Kelby and his cohorts for a little live Lightroom session today. Just click on the link in your email and then log in with the username and password that you created when you registered for the photowalk. The session kicks off at 10:00 AM Eastern time and lasts for about an hour. When you get there, you will get to see Scott and the guys process their photowalk images using Adobe Lightroom. It should be a lot of fun.

That’s it for the day, now go do something inspiring!

Sorry for the short hiatus the past few days but I took a little side trip to Texas before returning home to visit my family. But now I’m back and I have a ton of things to write about this week so I thought I would start off by catching up with some things I wasn’t able to get to over the past couple of weeks. We’ll call this Catch-Up Monday.

6 Days Until the Worldwide Photowalk -

We’ve got less than a week to go until the 3rd Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk and I am getting pretty excited. There are now 1099 registered photowalks scheduled to take place next Saturday with over 27,000 participants.  I will be sending out emails to all of my walkers during the week but here’s something that I wanted to share with everyone. If you have registered for a photowalk and won’t be able to attend, make sure that you visit the official page for that photowalk and remove yourself to make room for someone that might be on the waiting list. Only officially registered walkers will be eligible to upload images and possibly win a prize so if you have had a change of plans, please don’t forget to remove your name from the list. The walk leaders can’t do it for you so you have to take care of this one on your own.

Speaking of Photowalk Prizes -

The winning photograper from each photowalk will receive either a copy of Scott Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers or The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers. I happily had my copy of the Lightroom 3 book waiting for me when I got home from my trip and I am about a third of the way through it already. It’s a great read and, as always, Scott does a fantastic job of walking the reader through every aspect of Lightroom 3. The Lightroom book is available now and the CS5 book should be available soon. I can’t wait!

Not sure what to shoot?

I get this question a lot from people that are venturing out on their first photowalk. Sure, you could just take photos of the obvious stuff you see on the street but if you want to try something different, try shooting a theme. There’s a fairly new iPhone App called Photo Walk Ideas that can help you with this. Just pick a them from the scroll wheel like Abstracts, People, Nature, Urban, etc. and then pick a difficulty level and the app will give you a checklist of different subjects to check off. It’s a pretty neat idea. You can read more about it here.

Let’s say that you are already in the location but you are stuck for subject matter and need a little inspiration. Once again, you can reach for your trusty iPhone and check out the Photo Walk app. This little program will locate your current position and then pull up a map with pins that link to photos on Flickr that were taken in the same area. You can actually select the ones that you like the best and the app will plot a course for you so you don’t miss out on any photo opportunities. This is especially handy if you are shooting in an unfamiliar location. You can find out more info at the developers website.

On a more personal note -

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Matt Brandon of The Digital Trekker as part of his Depth of Field series. We chatted for over an hour about photography, photowalking, and my photography career in general. The series is sponsored by my publisher, Peachpit Press, and Matt has interviewed some of the hottest photogs in the business, including Jasmine Star, Zach Arias, Ami Vitale, Chris Orwig, David duChemin, Trey Ratcliff, Nevada Weir, and more, which still leaves me wondering why he would want to interview me. I really did enjoy speaking with Matt. He is a true gentleman and I had a lot of fun doing the interview.

On a more geeky note, you might be interested to know that I did the entire interview using nothing but my Apple iPad and the Skype app. Matt conducts most of his interviews over Skype because he is based in Malaysia (he shoots a lot for NGO’s and non-profits). So while Matt was using his computer with a fancy Blue Snowball Microphone, I was sitting in my easy chair using a pair of headphones and the built-in mic on the iPad and the quality was pretty darn good. You can hear the interview by clicking here and make sure that you check out the rest of Matt’s Digital Trekker blog while you are there. He has some really great stuff going on.

There’s nothing like the site of a FedEx truck pulling into my driveway. Usually it means that I am about to get some really cool new piece of photo gear. But yesterday it was even better because I received my author copies of my latest book, right from the printers.  That’s right, my latest title, Canon T2i/550D: From Snapshots to Great Shots is finished printing and should be hitting the warehouses soon. I had a lot of fun writing this book because the T2i is such a great camera. Not only that but the crew at Peachpit did a fantastic job as always with the layout. It really is a great looking book if I do say so myself.

For those of you that have not seen one of my books, they aren’t your normal camera book fare. When I began writing the series (this is number 5 for me) I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just offering up a re-hash of the owner’s manual. Instead I cover the most important camera features, and then I take it one step further. I tell you how to use them to make better photographs. Your owner’s manual does a good job of describing what a feature might do but it doesn’t necessarily tell you how or when to use it, but I do.  So if you are a Canon T2i/550D owner give it a read and see if it is the right book to help take your photography to the next level.

By the way, if you own a Nikon D3000, D5000, Canon 50D, G10/11, 7D or T1i/500D, there’s a Snapshots to Great Shots available for you as well. Just check at your favorite book seller like Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Borders.

Attention all you Canon 7D owners out there. There is a new book available in the Snapshots to Great Shots series and it’s just for you. Salt Lake City photographer Nicole Young has written the perfect book for new 7D owners that will guide you through the best features of the camera and how to leverage them to make great looking photos. You can find her new book at Amazon or wherever you buy great photography books now.

Alien Skin Releases Exposure 3

Are you an old school photographer who uses digital for the speed, convenience, and cost but longs for the look of film? Well then you need to check out the latest release from the folks at Alien Skin software called Exposure 3. With 500 different film techniques, you are sure to find something to bring back the organic look of film to your images. There are tons of presets including B/W films such as Tri-X, NeoPan, and Delta. But there’s more than just black and white presets. There are tons of them for classic color films such as Kodachrome, Polaroid, and even old classics like Daguerreotypes. The plug-in is completely compatible with 64-bit Photoshop CS5 as well as Lightroom 3. The only problem you might have with this plug-in is trying to decide on which one of the 500+ presets you want to use. Check out the video below and then head to Alien Skin for more information and to download the free trial.

A Photo Companion for Google Earth

The other day I wrote about how I use Google Earth to find great places to shoot when I travel. Shortly after the post I received an email from a reader telling me about another app that could enhance the travel photo experience. It’s called The Photographer’s Ephemeris. Wikipedia defines ephemeris as “is a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times” and that’s pretty much what this app does. Just put in the location and you will not only see things like sunset and sunrise times, but also how the sun will track across the landscape so you always know where the good light will come from and where it’s going.

To check out the app and see all of the features, follow this link to iTunes. I have not had a chance to check out this app but I have downloaded it and am anxious to give it a try. If you have used it or the desktop version, drop me a note in the comments and let me know what you think.

Migrating to Lightroom 3

The other day I was talking about the release of Lightroom 3 and how I didn’t think that the beta catalog could be imported into the official release version. I was basing this on information that a friend at Adobe told me when the beta was first released. It wasn’t long after I wrote that post that people started writing in to tell me that they were able to import their catalogs. I figured I had better check with the one person that would almost certainly have the answer, the Lightroom Killer Tips guy, Matt Kloskowski. Matt confirmed the import and, since I was apparently not the only person asking this question, he decided to write a post over at his blog on just how to go about importing the Beta catalog. If you are making the move from the beta to the official release, make sure you give Matt’s post a quick read.

Unified Color Offering Free HDR Webinar

If you have any questions about HDR PhotoStudio software or general HDR techniques, join Unified Color for a free Webex seminar this today, June 17th at 5pm PT. One of their HDR experts will walk users through the different tools for ways to achieve the best HDR results. Space is limited to only 24 participants – so reserve your seat now! Here’s the link.

Oprah wants your Nature Photos – Forever

I received a comment recently on one of my old posts about Photo Contests from blog reader Marianne Bush. It seems that Oprah’s website had made a call for submissions of nature photos. The website asks -

“Are you a great photographer? We want to see! Share your beautiful and inspiring images of nature to help create the Breathing Space Gallery on Oprah.com.”

What they don’t tell you in that catchy little pitch, is that by sending in your image, you are relinquishing all rights to your image. Here’s what it says in section 4 of the Terms and Conditions statement:

“Harpo shall exclusively own all known or later existing rights to the Submissions worldwide and shall be entitled to the unrestricted use of the Submissions for any purpose in all media now known or hereafter discovered without compensation to the provider of such Submissions.”

That’s a pretty steep price for getting an image posted in a web gallery. If you would like to check out the rest of the rules, you can find them here. Just remember, if you are going to enter your photo in a contest or other similar such venture, be sure to read all the rules and conditions first before giving away all your rights.