A Full SmugMug Review!

I recently wrote an article entitled “How to Make an Online Photo Album” about SmugMug. Follow that link to learn more!

I feel a little late to the SmugMug party! Here is the story… I kept hearing more and more about SmugMug. And I was like… What! Why is everyone always talking about SmugMug! What a strange name. Hey… I’m on Flickr… the last thing I need is another place to host my photos… this is what I was thinking.

And then the very kind Candice Cunningham invited me to speak at the inaugural SmugMug meeting here in Austin. It was an amazing group of people and many people in there already had SmugMug portfolios and businesses! As I learned more and more, I became even more impressed. I even got to visit their HQ near San Francisco and I came away really excited about the present and future of SmugMug.

I have linked the “Visit My Portfolio” up there on the top right of the site to link to StuckInCustoms.SmugMug.com. It is really beautiful and I have decided to make it official.

I am very happy with my SmugMug Portfolio. You guys know I always want the best!

Even more Customization!

I wrote a second article on you can further Customize SmugMug. It already comes with a bunch of themes, but if you want something truly unique, you can just pay a bit extra to get something that is completely different. I reviewed four different third-party companies, all of which can give you a custom SmugMug “skin”.

Daily Photo – The Glorious Church at Stanford

During our amazingly fun Stanford photowalk, our entire unit crashed into into the church like the Allies setting up barracks inside a French cathedral.

Right before we went in, as I climbed the stairs, one of the more nervous-types that was on the photowalk said, “Uhhh, I don’t know if they will let us in because they are about to close.” I said something to the effect of, “Who cares, we’re going in anyway until they come tell us to leave!” And with that, we blew in through the front doors and spread out far and wide. I set up my camera and gave a little talk about my settings for the shot. I mentioned that in dark situations, you don’t want your multiple exposures to all be 30 seconds. You need to widen your aperture and increase the ISO so that your all your exposures get finished, with the final one at 30 seconds. In this situation, I shot 5 exposures at 1 step increments with my 5 respective shutter speeds at 2 seconds, 4 s, 8s, 15s, and 30s.

Oh, btw, now that I am one with sweet sweet SmugMug, click on the photo below to see it big and bold and proper. At the top, you can select whatever size you wish.

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Stanford, Travel

Recap of the Photowalk

It turned out to be a great Photowalk!

I sent out a few worried tweets while en route because of the rain, and I got tweets back that there was a full complement of photowalkers waiting under the tree in The Oval. I showed up, at the very last possible second, and then said hi to everyone. It was a very upbeat crowd, and I was happy to meet all of them! I think we had around 50 there, even though the rain was rather epic, especially by California standards!

After I explained the way I do my Photowalks (half shooting, half sharing online), we set out to hit a few spots on campus. As we were moving about, Arnav Moudgil took this photo (also on the right) for the newspaper. This was taken when we were walking in one of the covered areas of the campus.

We moved around and hit several locations, including the one below. At the end, we went over to an eating area and talked for a long while about photography and stuff! I signed books, gave away all kinds of goodies from Smugmug, and this sort of thing — it was nice to meet such enthusiastic photographers. One enterprising Type A created a “Stuck In Stanford” Flickr group where people are currently sharing their photos… this is my first contribution to the group!

Daily Photo – The Stanford Church in the Photowalk Storm

The rain situation was betwixt sprinkles and torrent.  There was enough rain to moisten my bulbous 12-24 (that sounds dirty), so I wanted to be quick.  Usually, I let people look through my lens to see the composition, but, it would have gotten too wet… so I just fired away quickly then put on my little trombone-cover-thing.

Now, maybe my smart audience can help me figure this out.  Some people on the walk told me that “HDR” was “invented” here at Stanford.  Others tell me MIT.  A few people told me that the first HDRs ever taken were inside this very church (where I also collected some shots, for publication soon).  Anyway, this all sounds very intriguing… and I am interested to know the real answers!

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Stanford, Travel