In 2007 I purchased the above camera, primarily so I would have something to take pictures with at MINI United in Zaandvort, Netherlands. I did some research, asked around and that’s the camera that was recommended more than others for high-end point and shoots. I sit here today, 5 years and close to 100,000 shots (I think) later, and it’s still a great camera.
It was with this camera that I became excited about my photography. It was with this camera that I’ve taken photos in 5 different countries and damned near every state in the US. It was with this camera that I discovered how fun it is to take photographs.
It was also, most recently, this camera that captured the following shots. (Read on…)
This Christmas brings thoughts of good cheer and tiddings to all readers of donburnside.com, and maybe a little geekery about iPhone photography.
We all know that the iPhone is pretty amazing at taking photos. We also know that there are apps that improve the experience quite a bit, from cool effects and filters to ways that make sharing photos easy. Here are some of the things I’ve found so far, along with a couple new pieces of kit that I got for Christmas.
Apps
Hardware
I scored this Christmas! Check out these two great things Stella got me!
. I saw this when it first appeared on Kickstarter and I was sad I didn’t have an iPhone to use it with. The minute I got my iPhone, the first thing I wanted was this. Allows you to easily mount your iPhone to a tripod.
. Said tripod. This one comes with a case to use but if you have any kind of screen or back protection like Ghost Armor or a MotoringBadges iPhone wrap, it’s not a great fit. The tripod does work fantastic with the Glif!
Online services While Instagram works great for sharing photos to all of your social media sites, the way it works with Facebook isn’t that hot. Same goes with Flickr to Facebook integration. I think many FB users have those services blocked, so a lot of the time the photos go without being seen.
Enter IfThisThenThat, a service that’s been around a while but I haven’t used. You use it to build your own programs that actually do stuff. I will probably do an entire post on it later. You can even create recipes that are shareable, which is what I have done.
This will take any photo that has been uploaded to Facebook and automatically move it to Flickr including a link back to the original photo in Facebook. And, it works!
I’m still on the hunt for photo apps, but slowly. I know that some of you have more than a few you would like to share, sound off in the comments below. I’m sure Hipstagram is a favorite out there, but I’m not really a fan yet. I would love to hear others!
Last weekend, the inaugural Arizona Balloon Classic took place at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler. Not really Wild Horse Pass, but a place called Rawhide. From their site:
>Witness more than 50 hot air balloons take flight both morning and night on November 18, 19 and 20 at Rawhide in Chandler, Arizona.* Don’t miss this unique visual spectacle during the perfect time of year.
50 is more than a bit of a stretch. The actual count on Sunday was closer to 12, and not a single one of them was there at sunrise. A fact I am supremely confident with since we were there at sunrise.
Once the balloons did show up, it was pretty amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this before, at least not up close and personal. Standing right next to each balloon as it was filled with hot air from propane torches that resembled rocket engines was awesome.
The main reason for us going was to snap some photos and video of the balloons, which I did using pretty much all of my gear.
That was shot with my Canon, which couldn’t be in the shot because it was busy taking the shot. Shots that can be seen in my Flickr stream.
And there is video. This video is comprised of video from my the The Flip Mino and Canon HF100. I was going to do some iPhone video in there, but decided against using a 3rd video camera because that’s just silly.
This week’s location was in Downtown Mesa, an area that has been recently renovated. Lots of unique shops and architecture all centered around the brand new Mesa Arts Center. The building is amazing, and the architecture surrounding it is amazing, lending itself nicely to a beautiful morning’s photo walk.
I’ve shared what I think the best of the best are here. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can here.
Just through the course of a day I end up on some photographers website. Invaribly it’s something hosted by photobiz.com or wix, all done in flash with copy-righted background music playing and a crappy looking WordPress blog hanging off the side like dirty dish rag hanging out of the kitchen window. I keep asking why, but never get answers that I find acceptable.
Until I asked Stella the same question. Being the photographer of the house, I thought she would have good insight into the reasoning behind photographers having such horrible websites. Our conversation went a little something like this.
Could it really be that easy? A person that has the ability to charge thousands of dollars for their services that they perform with (possibly) tens of thousands of dollars worth of very complicated electronic components just aren’t nerdy enough?
That must be it. I think the problem that we as nerds run into is in our thought patterns. Photographers aren’t nerds. Photographers are creatives, that just so happen to do their creating with digital equipement. A fact, I think, fools the rest of us into thinking that photographers know the same things that we do.
Which they don’t.
They just want a website that displays their portfolio and other information in a pleasing manner, just like everyone else. Sites like photobiz and wix have capitalized on this, targeted photography professionals with words like ‘easy to use’, ‘background music’, ‘elegant’ and ‘comic sans’ to lure them in. So they get stuck.
Makes me wonder. Do they not try to open their websites on their iPhone/Android/Blackberry? Have they not tried to open their site using an iPad or Android tablet? If they have, do they just shrug their shoulders and say “Oh well. I’m not a nerd enough to make something better”?
Or do they see Flash as their security blanket? Thinking that if their photos are wrapped up in flash, they can’t be stolen and used in nefarious ways. Nerds know otherwise, don’t we?
Instead, I prefer to think that we, as nerds, have failed the professional photographers. Failed in that we haven’t shown them the way to nicely display their photos on any device, on any platform and with any browser. We have failed to guide them in best web practices. Failed to help them save money by avoiding services such as these.
As nerds, we owe it to our photography brethren to show them the right way. The way to display their photos in a pleasing way that is easy to use and keep their photos as safe. The way to share their work with iPhone/iPad/Android/Blackberry users. The way to save money by not having to pay the rediculous rates that the other guys charge. We owe them.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Feel free to use my stuff, just Be sure to let me know.
