Photography – Page 10 – Yellow Bike Studio

Welcome to Flickr

I’ve decided that the peer pressure was just too much and I would finally create a Flickr account. I’ve started out with 18 of my favorite tulip pictures.

So far the process has been very painless, in fact, I’m writing this blog entry from within Flickr because I can directly link to my images from here. One of the items that I was really not liking about WordPress previously was the awkwardness of adding images to my posts. Hopefully this will address that issue and give me one less reason to procrastinate about posting.

Living Breast Notecard Collection, 2006

The Living Breast project, which I’ve been working on for nearly two years now, has reached another milestone. The 2006 notecard collection has been printed and is ready for distribution. Read more about the project (and order a set of the cards while you’re at it) at www.livingbreast.com.

This project started out as a fundraiser for breast cancer research, but in the process has become so much more than just a fundraiser. I can’t explain in words how much joy and excitement each photo session ends with. Every single participant has left with a renewed sense of healing and empowerment. The paintings that Denise does are not just her creations, they are the visualization of the inner beauty that each woman has within her — these paintings are an outward sign of the power and energy within the participant.

Breast cancer is a horrible disease that attacks that which our society holds as being the defining physical characteristic of a woman. The real power behind this project is that it shows that breasts alone do not define a woman. Rather, it is the beauty within that has the ability to outshine that which our eyes keep us from seeing.

I feel truly blessed and grateful that Denise has given me the opportunity to be a part of this project. I can only hope that this project will reach the eyes of those most in need of hope and encouragement as they go through the process of healing and recovery.

Artwork accepted to ArtFutura show

I’m excited to announce that some of my photography has been accepted in the ArtFutura 2006:Transformations show. The pieces selected are from an ongoing collaboration project that I’ve been working on with a good friend of mine, Denise Milito. The project is title “The Living Breast” and is an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer. You can read more about the project and how to support the project at www.livingbreast.com.

The new Nikon D200

Nikon recently announced (on November 1st, 2005) a new camera, the D200 DSLR. It’s a vast improvement over the old D100 and the more recent D70/D70s and D50. I’ve been using the D100 for a couple of years now and have been very pleased with its durability and picture quality, so I can only assume that the D200 will provide more of the same and a whole lot more.

I’ve been asking for a D200 ever since Nikon released the D70. While the D70 is faster than the D100, it’s not a D100 replacement. For one, you can’t get a vertical grip for the D70, which I use all the time with my D100. For a while, I had lost hope that Nikon was going to fill the gap between the D70 and the uber-expensive D2h/D2x cameras and was actually contemplating forking out the money for a D2x. Thank goodness for the D200 because it has everything I was hoping for but with about half the price tag.

Supposedly, the new D200 will ship in December, but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s true or not. I’ve been using Nikons for some time now, and they seem to be behind when shipping new products like this.

How not to lose 60GB of photos

History
When I decided to go digital with my photography, I knew that I would need to have some good way of archiving and backing up my data so that I would be assured of not losing any data if something bad were to happen to my computer. Well, the other day, I got a first-hand glimpse at what it’s like to have to completely rely on my backup system.

Trauma
I went to boot up my computer, and instead of being greeted by my friendly welcome screen, I was greated with a blank gray screen. I’m technically savvy enough, so I tried a couple of things, but to no avail. After a chat with tech support, it was clear that I needed to wipe my hard drive and reinstall Mac OS X.

A happy ending
Luckily, I do have a backup system in place and luckily, I run it regularly. It took some time, and I learned a few lessons, but after a few hours, I was back up and running with my data restored.

Lessons learned
I found that my backup system was not as perfect as I had thought. It took a lot more manual file copying than I would have liked. Now that I have my system back up and running, I’m going to add a little fire drill to my backup routine that will further assure me that no data will be lost in case this happens again.

My system
I use Retrospect to back up my hard drive to an external firewire hard drive. I also archive all events to DVD twice: once right after I download the images to my computer from my camera, and again after I’ve sorted and organized all of the event’s images.

We've moved!

It’s been a while since my last post and I have an explanation — I’m now living in Madison, WI.

We moved in the end of May and I had a full load of weddings this summer, so I haven’t had the time to post anything new. BUT, I have had a chance to check out some new proofing options and I’m really excited about them. Expect to see a post soon.

So, no longer Chicago, but I’m still doing quite a bit of work there. It’s only two and a half hours away and a nice secondary market for my photography…

New wedding albums

Leather Craftsmen
Overview. I’ve been looking into various album options for my wedding clients and recently ordered an album through Leather Craftsmen. Well, I just got the album in the mail and it looks fantastic. Here’s my review of the album.

First impressions. I am very impressed with this album. The first thing I said when I pulled it out of the box was “wow!” The leather cover is top-notch, the binding is impeccable, and it just feels good in your hands.

Album Details. It’s a leather bound album which contains pages of full-bleed images that are hand-bound together. The pages are actual photographs and therefore very high quality — as opposed to the Apple albums that I reviewed previously which the images are printed directly on the page. Each page is very sturdy and coated in a laquer that feels like it will last forever.

Options. I chose to have the slate blue leather with gold gilding on the page edges. This doesn’t show up in the images very well, but looks fantastic in person. There are a lot of options to choose from with these albums. You can pick from about 8 leather colors, you can have text printed on the cover and the spine, you can have a cover photo, rice paper inserts between the pages, and so on. I think there are enough options to satisfy just about everybody. Oh, and did I mention that they come in about a dozen different sizes?

How to order an album. For my clients, the ordering process couldn’t be much easier. You simply choose 40 or more pictures that you want included in the album and I design an album layout for you. The album layout is viewable online which is very convenient. After you approve the layout, you pick from the available options (leather color, text imprinting, etc.) and then order the album. The turnaround time is about 8 weeks.

Pricing. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing an album.

Why vertical?

I was just perusing my photo albums and noticed that the majority of my images are vertical images. In fact, if you look at the images I’ve posted so far, only 1 is horizontal. I’m not going to get into this in too much detail now, but I think it’s primarily because I shoot a lot of people pictures and people by nature are vertical.

Maybe I’ll think about this more and try to spin it into a photo tip (“format your picture to match your subject”), but for now, it’s just an observation.

I've been published!

Griekenland Magazine
I just found out that some of my images of Crete, Greece are going to be used in the Crete edition of Griekenland Magazine. It’s a Greek language magazine, so I won’t be able to read what they’re saying, but I’ll recognize my images.
This is a first for me and very exciting. I’ve included a couple of my images from Crete in this post. If you want to see more images, you can check out my gallery of images here.

New lens

Well, I just got a new lens for my camera. It’s a Nikon 24-85 f/2.8-4. Hopefully this will replace my 35-105 as my all around general purpose lens. Because I’m all digital now, I needed that extra bit of wide angle to be able to cover the standard zoom range. If I need to go wider I can always grab my 17-35, but I think I’ll be using this new lens for about 80% of what I do. Another great thing about this lens is that it has macro and the ole 35-105 didn’t, so I’ll be able to add close-ups to my image making now.