Happy Thanksgiving

Today in the U.S. we celebrate one of our most popular holidays; “Thanksgiving,” which is day for giving thanks for the blessings in our lives. This is a day we usually spend at home surrounded by family, and we enjoy two key Thanksgiving day traditions: a huge Thanksgiving day turkey dinner, and FOOTBALL!!! I’m thankful to everyone who stops by here, and spends a few minutes with me each day. I feel very blessed to be able to do this blog. I would like to send a Thanksgiving blessing to all of our friends, family and to those very special men and women who are fighting for our freedom. I wish you all a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving.

Photoshop World - Reason #9 To Go!

The GURU Awards!

I'm no where near ready to start submitting my work to the GURU awards, but seeing the winners work each year is jaw dropping and inspiring. The image above is a previous winner, and all of last conference winner's can be seen here. The only images I've ever seen are the winners, so now I want to see all the entries!

And guess what - it's only open to the attendees of Photoshop World! It's a great - and fun - way to get your work noticed by some of the best in the industry.

Carol : Maternity

I know I've missed a few days, but I have been busy and away from the blog! I shot an INCREDIBLE session yesterday! I had the extreme honor of shooting Carol's maternity photos yesterday.


Her and her husband were lots of fun and good sports about anything I wanted to try. Some shots turned out - others didn't, but I'm glad they gave me the experience. As you can see Carol was a beautiful subject to photograph, and I think she looks AMAZING! Here's some of my faves from our shoot:

Seriously, is there any chance that the baby of this couple isn't going to be gorgeous??


You can just see how excited they both are for this baby. What a lucky baby!

Congratulations Carol and Joey! It's my absolute honor to know and work with you both! Can't wait to meet little Bennie!

PhotoshopWorld - Reason #10 To Go!

Portfolio Reviews and Help Desk LIVE!

Hey guys, I'm dying to go to this year's Photoshop World Conference in Boston, Mass March 25-27, 2009. So, I'm going to be passing on to you the Top Ten reason's I'd like to go. Today is entry #10 - the Portfolio Review and Help Desk LIVE!

First, if you don't know about Photoshop World it's the bi-annual conference on all things Photoshop put on by NAPP. If you don't know about NAPP , where have you been - I talk about it everyday in class!

Since my photography and digital imaging business is in it's nubile beginnings, what better thing have happen to me than the industry leaders and Photoshop gods look over my work and give me feedback?!? That alone would be worth the trip, but trust me - there's oh so much more! Ever been walking down the street and need to know an answer right then? Sure you have, we all do it. Well, if I was at Photoshop World and that happened - I could get an answer! Well, maybe I could... If the question was on Photoshop, I KNOW I could!

Hey, this is going to be fun. Stick around and see what other reasons I come up with!

Practice!

I was taking a master course the other day and the instructor advised that the best professional athletes PRACTICE their craft every day in one form or another. He went on to inform us that we too should practice our craft everyday.

So armed with that admonishment, I went to practice shooting flash images outside in the sunshine. I came away with these two as my favorite images of the shoot, but that's not the point. I want to remind you that you should be out practicing your craft too! Have fun!

Try Out CS4 - You know you want too!

As of yesterday you can now download trial versions of the CS4 applications. click here

"...the best damn camera strap in the world. Period. End of story."

I found out about this camera strap recently, and started checking around on it. EVERY single photographer I know and worship respect, uses this thing and loves it. The title of this post, comes from one of those photographers. That's a heck of a statement about it right there. Check it out here.

Photoshop Artists - How Cool!

Oh wow! Is this a cool site for geeks like us or what?!? Be prepared to spend an awful lot of time browsing this site...

http://www.artistsofphotoshop.com/

For My Nikon Friends... D300 Firmware Update

…and a couple of bug fixes, too! Here’s a list (from Nikon’s support site) of what’s included in this free downloadable update, which was released on Friday:

1. The Highlights playback option has been moved from Display Mode > Basic photo info > Highlights in tthe playback menu to Display mode > Detailed photo info > Highlights.
2. The size and color of “Demo” displayed in the monitor with playback when No memory card? in the Custom Settings has been set to Enable Release have been modified.
3. The range of settings available for ISO sensitivity settings > ISO sensitivity auto control > Minimum shutter speed in the shooting menu has been increased from 1/250 - 1s to 1/4000 - 1s.
4. When shooting in hand-held live view mode and the frame is magnified prior to autofocusing, operation has been modified so that display returns to the magnified display rather then the full frame display.
5. Images captured with Rotate tall, in the playback menu, set to On, are not automatically rotated for display immediately after capture (image review).
6. A Copyright information has been added to the setup menu. When Copyright information is enabled, the copyright symbol ( © ) is shown on the LCD display, Shooting info menu.
7. Recent settings can now be displayed in the place of My Menu.
8. Custom Setting e3 Flash cntrl for built in flash ( e3 Optional flash when an optional Speedlight is mounted on the camera) can now be added to My Menu using the Add items > Custom setting menu > Bracketing/ flash.
9. The degree of the High ISO NR setting can now be confirmed in the shooting info display while the High ISO NR setting item, in the shooting menu, is being applied.
10. Ankara, Riyadh, Kuwait, and Manama have been added to the Time zone options for the World time item in the setup menu.
11. When a GPS device is used and no heading information is available, –.–° is now displayed for the Position / Heading option in the GPS item in the setup menu.
12. When shooting in live view mode using Camera Control Pro 2 (ver. 2.2.0 or later) with a PC-E lens, the aperture setting can now be adjusted from the computer.
13. Focus acquisition performance in dynamic-area AF mode has been improved.
14. Focus acquisition performance with contrast-detect AF has been improved.
15. Auto white balance performance has been improved.
16. The fourth digit in seconds display for GPS latitude and longitude information is now rounded off rather than omitted.
17. The current MB-D10 battery type setting can now be confirmed in the shooting menu display when R6/AA- size batteries are used with the Multi-Power Battery pack MB-D10.
18. An issue that caused an increase in noise when shooting in [M] exposure mode at a shutter speed setting of bulb with the shutter held open for less than 8 seconds and Long exp. NR enabled has been resolved.
19. An issue that prevented shutter release at the specified shutter speed when no operations were performed for 30 seconds in mirror up mode has been resolved.
20. An issue that caused abnormal image display when Image review was set to On and the playback zoom in button was pressed immediately after shooting at the following settings has been resolved.
21. Image quality: NEF (RAW) + JPEG
22. NEF (RAW) recording: Lossless compressed or Compressed
23. Image size: S or M
24. When the Speedlight SB-800 was mounted on the camera with flash mode set to distance-priority manual (GN) mode, and the camera recovered from standby mode triggered by the auto meter off function, the distance information in the SB-800 changed. This issue has been resolved.

You can download the free update directly from Nikon:

Mac (Nikon USA) click here.
Windows (Nikon USA) click here

Mac (Nikon Canada) click here.
Windows (Nikon Canada) click here

Mac (Nikon Europe) click here.
Windows (Nikon Europe) click here