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Previous Videos

On the Videos page here on the site, I try to remember to link or embed previous videos, interviews, and all that sort of thing. Pop on over there, and you can see the previous episode of Mostly Photo that I was on where we talked about the following:

• How to share your photos online (I give some philosophical advice in addition to logistical, practical advise)
• Pricing your images and selling prints
• Getting inspiration from other online photographers
• SmugMug and how I use them  (see my full SmugMug Review here)

Thanks Om Malik and Mashable!

The new 100 Cameras in 1 with export-to-Instagram got some good press yesterday. Thank you to GigaOm and Mashable (and many others!) for the coverage.

Daily Photo – The Deep Indigo Night

Usually once it gets dark outside, I give it another half hour or so before I go restaurant-hunting. I like experimenting with new food while processing a few photos… It’s one of the greatest things… I usually have a table all by myself, and I get quite a large one so I can lay out all my stuff. I order all sorts of quirky foods, and I have a diet that would make Walter from Fringe happy.

But this night, there was so much strange ambient light that I decided to shoot for a few more hours. I worked my way up and down the waterside to find interesting sights. In these situations, I usually try to have at least one of my exposures be 30 seconds. That means the other four exposures are 15s, 8s, 4s, and 2s. That makes a good 59 seconds per session. I usually have my earphones on and I keep one finger on the tripod so I can feel the shutter click. I can tell immediately if my settings are off by the vibrations.

Filed under the categories: China, Feng Huang, Travel

The First Camera App to Integrate with Instagram

I’m happy (and honored) to announce that we are the first camera app to use the amazing Send-to-Instagram feature! 100 Cameras in 1 (iPhone link and iPad link) is now ready for download with the new feature.

Now our hundreds of thousands of users can make use of the amazing Instagram network. I’ve been using it for a long time, and I’m a big fan. It’s free, so why not grab it? My name on there is @TreyRatcliff. What’s yours?

The Very Serious Press Release

What Makes a Good Photo Great? The Morning Smell of Waffles and the Power of Instagram

On April 29, 2011, the world paused to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton walk down the aisle in a stunning, fairytale wedding. Indeed, it was a veritable union of brawn and beauty, royalty and humble beginnings, tradition and reckless love. On May 30, 2011, the world will again witness a marriage of epic proportion as the photo-sharing juggernaut, Instagram, merges with the elegant and poetic camera app, 100 Cameras in 1. Combined, these apps represent almost 5 million users, a hundred million pictures, memories, and stories, and infinite possibility. Even the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge couldn’t pull off a feat so massive.

Read the rest of the press release…

Daily Photo – Red Boat in Fjord Before Storm

As soon as I drove into Isafjordur in the very remote area of NW Iceland, I went right to the docks. The water was so calm and perfect that it was beyond belief. I was super-tired, and I thought that the still water MUST be a unique phenomenon, so I toughened up to go take a bunch of photos.

It was extra-hard because I knew I was ready to go to sleep… and I knew it was about to rain… and it’s one of my favorite things to sleep in the rain. So this worked out nicely since I also like to take a bunch of photos right before it rains. So I took photos till I almost collapsed, found my hotel room, jammed a lot of chocolate, and then fell asleep in that endorphin-laden serum to the gentle rainstorm.

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Isafjordur, Nikon D3X

Non-Profit is not Non-Commercial

By the way, some people brought this up in yesterday’s post about the Austin Airport Not Support Artists. Not that the Ausitn Airport is a non-profit… but it did spawn a good opportunity to talk about this, since I think it will be helpful to people that are interested in licensing.

We do a lot of licensing… and I mean a lot… we handle dozens per week, and sometimes a lot more. It generates significant income from all sorts of licensees, so we have a lot experience in this area. Since all my work is Creative Commons Non-Commercial, many people think, “Oh, well that means non-profits can use it for free!” And this comes across in many emails.

However, we still charge non-profits full price. Non-profit does not mean non-commercial. Non-profits are still money-making organizations that can have significant revenue and significant expenses (often in the millions). Many non-profits want to use my imagery on websites, brochures, advertisements, and the like to generate revenue for the company. They then use these revenues to pay expenses like salaries, cars, food, air travel, and whatever other business needs. I consider buying image advertising rights to be on par with all the other expenses.

Daily Photo – Dead Tired in London

I really over-scheduled myself on this day.  It started out early and was 100% full of photography activity!  I don’t remember having a spare 5 minutes just to sit there and zone out…. I do try to plan a little zone-out time, but this day I didn’t.  I kind of build my day like I was playing an RTS game, making sure I never had any idle workers.

After I got off the tube at Marylebone station, I exited into this scene. This is the little area I crossed every day to get from the tube into my hotel. It looked so perfect in the rain that I just had to take a photo…even though I was dog-tired.

Filed under the categories: London, Nikon D3X, UK

Austin Airport Not Supporting Artists

This one angers me… especially since I am supposed to live in a city that respects and supports artists. Anyway, you won’t believe this story…

So, I was coming through the Austin airport many weeks ago, and in the PRIME spot at the bottom of the escalators is a huge light-up photo display. Inside, I saw a photo that looked HDRish and so I went over to investigate. Down in the corner, it said simply “photo by mapaolini.” So, I recognized that “name” because Mike had taken one of my workshops back in a 2010.

About a month later I saw Mike at the Austin photowalk during SXSW and congratulated him on getting his art up in the airport. He said, “What?”

And so then I got very very interested. After my most recent trip to Florida, I took this photo with my iPad while waiting for my baggage and sent it to Mike so he could see! We then got into a big email conversation while I was trying to figure out what happened… it was pretty much immediately obvious to me, but I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

So, get this:

1. Mike was never informed that his photo was in the airport
2. Mike was never paid a dime (placement like this should be worth several thousand dollars to the artist, especially if they are going to use it for many months)
3. Mike’s name is not even correct in the corner of the photo.  His name is not “mapaolini” – that is his Flickr codename!
4. They made the WORST CROP EVER.  See his original Flickr photo!

Any one of those things is annoying — but all of them together are just embarrassing for the airport and the city of Austin.

Mike did some detective work and called the airport, who said they got it from the Austin Tourism Bureau.  They said this is considered Non Commercial.  HORSE MANURE.  Is all art in the airport non-commercial?  Does no one get paid?  How much did they pay for that huge bronze of Barbara Jordan (who looks like she is waiting on her baggage)? How much did they pay for those gut-wrenchingly awful paintings above the checkin counter for American Airlines?

It’s an insult to Mike, and, by extension, to all photographers and artists in Austin. They know what they did, and I think it’s pretty lousy…

Daily Photo – High-Tech Dining in Beijing

Beijing has some of the funkiest restaurants in the world! I think that some of the interior designers and architects really take some risks to do all sorts of things with lighting, textures, and styles. It doesn’t always work, but I  think it works pretty well here.

This restaurant was right next to the opera (see my blog post on “Amazing Opera Discovery in Beijing“). This was also built inside one of the old imperial bans in this old sector of Beijing.

And, below is the photo that was taken next door at the opera just after the amazing dinner.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3X

New Review – PhotoLooks

I’ve been working on the PhotoLooks Review here, and now it is finally ready for release!  If you decide to grab it, the team there said my readers can use the code  STUCK20 to save 20%.  Or, you can just grab a trial at: Red Giant Software – Magic Bullet PhotoLooks.

It’s very easy to use, but I don’t want to steal all the thunder from the full review.  I’ve included a ton of photos and samples so you can get an idea.  I’ll put a few of them here below and link each one to the review.  Some of these are photos that I worked on in the Webinar and then put a finishing “touch” on in PhotoLooks.

Above is a good example of the interface and power.  To the left are a bunch of different preview thumbnails.  I found one called “Unbloom”, clicked on it, and then it very quickly rendered the big version of it to the right.

Above, you can see the detailed control panel appearing on the right whenever the mouse moves over to that side of the screen.  As opposed to the left side of the screen, this is where you can add even more granular effects to your creation.

Above is the effect of the “Miami” filter, which is the same filter you see on CSI: Miami when that soulless redheaded detective says something campy like, “Looks like what we have here…[dramatic pause as sunglasses are whipped off]…is a ceramic cat that’s got himself one hell of a hairball.”

Filed under the categories: Travel

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Filed under the categories: China, Guilin, Li River, Travel

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Filed under the categories: Barcelona, Nikon D3X, Spain

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Filed under the categories: Florida, NASA, Nikon D3X, Travel

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Filed under the categories: Hakone, Japan, Nikon D3X, Travel

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Filed under the categories: France, Nikon D3X, Paris

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Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3X, Travel

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Filed under the categories: Iceland, Nikon D3S, Travel