Since I get a lot of requests to review and recommend other websites I decided to make life easier for myself and let you do the reviewing and suggesting. You can recommend any related website or blog you think might be of interest to this blog’s visitors.
Go here to suggest a website.
Category: Recommended
Recommend a website
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Website link – The negative
(This website link posted by Timopart)
I will shamelessly plug my blog: timirving.blogspot.com
Photography with film and old cameras plus art and the odd gallery visit.
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Phototuts+
(This website recommendation posted by mshutch)
Phototuts+ is a source of learning on all aspects of photography. The site pumps out regular tutorials on composition, equipment settings, post-processing, film photography, retouching and much more.
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Film Photography Podcast Website Review
(This website review posted by inwardstudio)
Looking to learn more about shooting film? Appreciate and irreverent approach to life? Love the New Jersey accent?
Film Photography Podcast is for you. Michael Raso and Duane Polcou head up the cast of characters that explore many aspects of film photography. The Impossible Project, Kodachrome and old cameras fill much of the time in this bimonthly podcast.
Each episode also includes a camera giveaway. Now, these aren’t the lastest high pixel count cameras coming from Japan. These are Ebay finds and listener donations. Canon AE-1s and Agfa Clacks are some of the more poplar giveaways.
Raso also gives away film from his personal stash to anyone who will write in. All he asks in return is some info about yourself and that you load the images to their Flickr group. I’m personally waiting on a roll of Kodachrome to come my way.
If that weren’t enough, the part I find most interesting is Raso’s progression as a photographer. Even though he has worked in the B movie genre for many years, he only recently started shooting still images on film. In each episode he talks about the “new” cameras, films and processes he’s discovered. His newby nature is balanced by Polcou’s many years of experience as a photographer. The combination is perfect.
This website review posted by inwardstudio
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Best camera for street photography
[I hope you will choose to participate in voting for your camera of choice.
The results of this poll are going to be considered and published in my next book.]
I imagine some photographers will find it difficult to pick their favorite camera for street photography but whatever it might be, the selection will be especially diverse.
Common sense dictates that the camera is compact, light, quiet and fast, though I’m sure this is not always the case. Most photographers will probably select the camera based on the desired appearance and quality of the final images. And besides, photographers can be quite a fussy crowed and often become rather attached to their camera regardless of its adaptability to the streets.
Having some experience with street photography and shooting a variety of SLRs, rangefinders, box and toy cameras, I would have quite a difficult time choosing one favorite camera.
Generally speaking, I find SLR’s are especially demanding of my undivided attention and in addition they can be quite heavy cameras.
TLR & box cameras are often complicated to operate and just like toy cameras they can be fairly unreliable. In addition toy and box camera’s manual winding is a definite drawback if you want to keep up with the pace of the streets.
Rangefinders, though posses most of the ideal attributes, they sometimes turn out poorly focused images and sadly not everybody can appreciate this trait
As far as digital cameras go, I can only assume there is no wrong camera for street photography and that most digitals can get the job done and with rather decent results.
But what do I know?
You can find this article and many creative photo processes in my new book:
So Much More than Photography – eBook edition is now on sale for $10.
Get it here
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Virtual Photographer
Recently someone recommended I try out a Photoshop plug-in called Virtual Photographer. I know, I know, every photographer out there is already familiar with this plugin and probably has been using it forever. But me, I somehow missed this great plugin, maybe because I usually prefer the “hands on” method when it comes to working on my photos. But never mind me, back to Virtual Photographer: I downloaded the plug-in, which is free and can be found here and took it for a test.
Well, OK, its really easy to use, not too much brain power needed, obviously the perfect software for me!
So you pretty much open your photo in Virtual Photographer’s preview window and play around with the large number of available photographic styles. (You can also manually control the styles but I really couldn’t find any benefit in doing so). When you find the style you like you simply apply it to your picture.
And there you go, your plain picture is now amazing.
And if it sounds like I’m patronizing this plug-in, I’m not, really.
I actually like this little thing and I will probably use it every now and then.
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Do you miss your Polaroid?
The other day, I came across this free little program that takes your digital pictures and turns them into cool Polaroid-like images. And even though I thought this is somewhat pointless, non-the-less I had to admit; this program was just too cute to pass up.
So this is how you use it: you download and install the program to your pc, you drag the photo of your choice and drop it on the Polaroid camera icon, you then wait for the picture to “develop” and you’ve got yourself a high res. digital Polaroid-like image.
Now go figure out what to do with it…
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Publishing a book with Blurb print on demand (review and also blurb vs. Lulu)
Now that I’m holding in my hands a book that was printed with Blurb I have to say I’m undeniably impressed!
The book I put together using BookSmart which is Blurb’s bookmaking software, is titled
Chasing George Washington – Road trip in Virginia & Pennsylvania
I created the book for personal purpose and also to test blurb and so I’m not planning on selling it.
Working in BookSmart was quite fun and simple and maybe the main advantage of this software is that it leaves lots of room for creativity. It lets you layer backgrounds, images and text, much like inDesign.
Once the book is ready it can be uploaded to Blurb from within BookSmart. After I ordered a copy I waited 4 days until the book was printed and ground shipping took another week or so.
The price of the book was quite reasonable; a Standard Landscape 10×8 inches premium printing Hardcover ImageWrap 80 pages is priced at $43.95.
The book is printed on a premium paper and the print quality is excellent! As I mentioned, I’m very much impressed with the whole process and mainly with the high quality of the actual printed book.
And finally as a bonus I discovered BookSmart makes it possible to create a pdf file from the file/print menu (printing as a pdf using a pdf writer such as CutePdf) and though the pdf file has the blurb watermark on it, it is certainly a plus.
The Conclusion:
If I had to choose between Blurb and Lulu then my choice will depend on my objective.
I would definitely choose Lulu (and/or CreateSpace) for publishing a standard book but for a coffee table/portfolio type of book I will absolutely go with Blurb;
1) Blurb’s BookSmart software permits more room for creative design and layout which is rather limited with Lulu Studio.
2) Another bonus point Blurb gets over Lulu Photo Book is the price: the same book mentioned above will be prices at $54.99 with Lulu (instead of $43.95 with Blurb) even though it will actually have somewhat a smaller size (9X7 at Lulu’s instead of 10X8 with Blurb)
3) The ability to create a pdf file with BookSmart is a nice feature.
Related:
Publishing a book with Lulu Studio
What Print on Demand should you choose?
Print on Demand photo books / part one
Print on Demand books / part two
The process of writing a book – part one
The process of writing a book – part two
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