fun
Productivity quick tips
I’ve recently been trying to keep things as simple as possible with regards to my photography as well as all the “stuff” that is part of the business. In doing so I’d like to share with you 2 of my recent discoveries.
My first suggestion has to do with reading interesting articles online. I read a lot of photography blogs and crative inspiration articles. As you might know, web pages are full of ads and “stuff” that distracts from the actual text you are reading. Readability is a tool that makes pages a joy to read. it’s a little bookmark that you place on your browser toolbar and with one click it cleans up the page and leaves only the information you want to read. Check out the following example:
Page from the New York Times as it normally appears. This is a quick news item. Less than 1 page which you need to scroll down to finish reading:
An here’s how it looks like after one click on Readablilty. No scrolling, clean borders and easy to read:
A super simple tool that makes reading articles online much easier on the eyes!
The other tool is part of the Mac OS and it helps when you are reading those great articles online and you find a word that you are not familiar with (English being my second language I often use this to learn new vocabulary). This is a shortcut to the dictionary that all Mac computers come with. Lets say you are reading an article or writing an email and you need to check the definition of a word. You simply have to place your cursor over the word and hold down Control + Command + D and a tiny pop up window appears over the word you selected with the definition. Easy and very useful.
As you can see there is also the option to select either the dictionary or thesarus at the bottom of the window as well as the option to open the Dictionary application.
Hopefully this 2 tips will be useful to you. I know that for me this little things make a big difference in my daily work routine.
“Best Camera” by Chase Jarvis & Ubermind
Fans of Chase Jarvis found a nice surprise this morning when they checked his blog for the latest news. It seems Chase has been working on an iPhone App for a while and it has finally seen the light of day this morning.
The App is called Best Camera and the name comes from the popular phrase “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You”. This App gives you a bunch of filters and tweaks you can apply to the photos taken with your iPhone and is similar to other Apps on the iPhone (Camera Bag comes to mind) where you can get creative with your shots. The big advantege Best Camera has is that it has included a social aspect to the process. Any images you create you can then share with all the popular social networks from within the App.
You give the App permission to access your Facebook, Twitter, etc. and then using the Share button your photos get sent to all those sites at once. This really is a reflection of the whole philosophy that Chase has promoted for a long time. He is one of the most, if not the most open and generous photographers out there when it comes to sharing his knowledge and experiences.
Here’s a couple of images from the App in action:
The icon for Best Camera
This is the startup screen. A nice simple interface. I really appreciate good design and this just works.
Here are the main sections explained
I first went into the Settings and approved all the logins for my social media sites (Facebook, Tweeter etc.)
Then it was time to try things out. I loaded an image into the App by tapping on the second icon at the bottom. This takes you to the Camera Roll on your phone. You can also take a shot with the camera. I selected an image and I was ready to start checking some effects.
The first effect I tried was Candy. It gave the shot a nice saturated and contrasty look. I really like the intense orange colour of the beer.
I applied the changes and was brought back to the main screen.
I tried the Vignette icon and this is what I got. Cool.
If at any point in the creative process you want to remove a filter or go back to where you were a few steps back, you just press the icon with the two circles in the upper right hand side of the main screen (looks like 2 filters one on top of each other) and you are taken to this screen where you can tap on the “x” above each filter. It’s like having an “undo” command.
Finally when you are happy with your image you click on the big arrow at the bottom of the main screen and you select which social media sites you want your shot to appear in. It’s that simple.
Overall I really like this App. It is super simple to use, the interface is perfectly designed and it runs great. I think the social aspect is what’s going to make it a bit more popular with users than the other Apps that do similar things.
There are a couple of filters that I wish Best Camera would offer that you can find in it’s direct competitor Camera Bag but that’s a minor thing and I’m guessing that future versions of this one may offer more filters and effects. My ideal App would be Best Camera and PhotoGene (the other App I use on every shot I take) rolled into one. That would be iPhone camera heaven.
This is a great App and at 3 dollars it’s a must buy in my book.
iPhone Apps I use for photography
Since I got an iPhone the App store has become a very cool place to find interesting little programs. After downloading the obligatory utilities and a couple of fun games I started looking at the photography section of the store. Could this little phone do anything with the images it can take? The answer to this is yes, it can do quite a few things actually.
With the new iPhone 3GS you actually have a decent camera that also takes video. I’m really jealous of this new camera on the phone but my upgrade will not be happening any time soon since the new hardware would cost too much. I mean it is only a camera on a phone right? Well, even with my “old” iPhone 3GS there are 2 Apps that I’ve found indispensable for my iPhone camera enjoyment.
First off what I consider the Photoshop of the iPhone, Photogene by Omer Shoor. This application has gotten more amazement from friends and family than any other. They just can’t believe you can do all this on the phone. Crop, rotate, adjust levels, correct white balance and more….on the phone!
Almost every shot I take on my iPhone goes through Photogene. I’m a crop fanatic (not sure if that’s good or bad) and this App lets me do so much I don’t think I could live without it. $3.00 for photo bliss is not bad.
The next app I use almost always is CameraBag from Nevercenter Ltd. Co. This App is sort of a filter application it applies effects to your photos (usually after I run them through Photogene) and saves the copy to your camera roll.
I has a variety of effects that look like a Holga shot or a faded Polaroid for example. With one swipe of the finger you can see each effect rendered on your selected photo and once you are happy with the results you save it as a copy. I’ve actually applied effects multiple times on some abstract images to create a double intensity result. It works great.
I highly recommend both these Apps if you are into photography and use an iPhone. They take your images to a new creative place. Your friends and family will not believe they came out of your phone.
Snow Leopard – Features I’m digging
Here’s a couple of things I’m really enjoying about the new OS:
Yes, this is something that should have been done ages ago but now that it’s an official Apple setting I don’t have to mess with installing third party utilities to have the date appear on my menu bar all the time. You can’t configure it at all but this is enough for me.
The Dock now has a cleaner interface for the pop-up effect when you click on a folder or applications….
…and now you can drill down inside any folder until you get to where you want. A slider appears on the right when there are too many items in the folder. Nice.
Another cool new setting in the Finder is the ability to see your icons at up to 512 pixels in size. That is gigantic when it comes to icons and you might think it’s not that useful but when you are looking for photographs or PDF’s this is great. You can see your images clearly and check the differences between the versions you have saved.
With PDF’s you can actually see the pages and make sure which document you want to open. This also applies to Pages documents and Numbers documents.
This are just a few of my favourites up to now. More to come as I keep exploring.
Fantastic Painting with light
Light painting by Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza
Just found this set of images by Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza that I think are amazing. I immediately started thinking about the process to create them and it looks very elaborate and fun. Looks like they are using some sort of wand with light sticks at the ends so he then twirls it to create some incredible circular shapes. Check out the whole gallery, really worth it if you like this stuff.
Amazing Light Paintings | Abduzeedo
Friday mixed bag
A couple of quick things that have been buzzing through my head recently:
iPhone 3.0
The new iPhone 3GS is too expensive for me and the new features don’t justify the crazy cost to get it so the upgrade to the new OS will have to do this time around. I just did the upgrade to 3.0 and haven’t had much time to play with it but it looks like there are some nice new features waiting to be discovered. My favourites up to now:
- Cut / Copy / Paste is awesome
- Search will be big time saver
- MMS is handy when an email is overkill
If you have an iPhone this is a must upgrade. No issues at all installing it.
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CEF Solstice Shoot
Yesterday I participated in the Compassionate Eye Foundation’s Solstice event by helping Steven Errico in his photography shoot. The theme was “urban gardening” and the location was on the 7th floor of a downtown condo that has a garden terrace with a variety of vegetables and herbs planted. The images Steven shot were really cool and the whole crew had a great time. Check Steven’s site for some great photography and keep an eye out for his images showing up there soon.
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Whithin the Frame
Last week I attended the unofficial Vancouver launch of David duChemin’s book “Within the Frame”. David is a freelance, humanitarian photographer based here in Vancouver and his enthusiasm is so contagious that you just want to go out and book a trip everytime you are around the guy! Now with the book out you’ll have this feeling every time you turn a page.
There are many extensive reviews of the book out there (here and here for example) so I’ll just say that since the day I got the book I want to shoot a lot more, but with a different perspective, a more open attitude to what I’m seeing through my camera lens. Highly recommended.
iPhone 3GS
In the words of Lisa Bettany
“my iPhone is now officially obsolete”
Although not totally obsolete, that’s precisely how I felt when I saw the new iPhone 3GS. The good news is that many of the cool new features are actually part of the new iPhone OS. In about 10 days I’ll be doing a lot of these:
• copy, cut and paste
• searching emails, apps and calendars
• MMS
• Landscape keyboard
But the feature that’s making my bank account very nervous is the new camera. It’s a 3 megapixel camera with auto OR manual focus and with video at 30 fps at 640 x 480.
You can edit video ON THE PHONE, and upload it directly to MobileMe or YouTube. Finally! I wouldn’t have to carry my iPhone AND a camera with me for casual photos and video. This is very cool.
Besides this, the speed improvement would also be a welcome change. It’s not that my (now “old”) iPhone is so slow I can’t use it, not at all, but any speed improvement in opening applications and rendering websites would be great.
Overall a great new version of the iPhone that will have to be checked out in person to compare with my current one.
Brace for impact!
photographers math
Found this via David’s blog (which should be one of your daily reads by the way). Funny mathematical equations that explain the photography world including gear, styles and techniques. Some of them are so true! Click below to visit
photographers math
portfolio update
I’ve been finalizing the post production on a shoot I did a couple of weeks ago and have been experimenting with the “look” I had visualized in my mind before the shoot. It’s slowly getting there but needs more work before it formally makes it to the website.
The theme is a TV Room/Entertainment shoot. Here’s a quick sample of what we did.
New post coming!
The new year has brought many new challenges and after regrouping for the past few weeks I am ready to start posting again. There are images to share and news to examine. To start I wanted to link today to a video from the TED conference that just brought a smile to my face. Check it out and send me your comments.
More coming soon!
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