The New Photography Podcast is up!

What do you think? Any feedback? It actually might be best to leave them on the YouTube page.

Free Photowalk Reminder

Want to join us in Austin for the PhotoWalk? It’s coming up during SXSW, and it’s gonna be great. Join the invite here.

The week of HDR Tips continues!

Today I’m talking about reflections, and new ways of planning for them in HDR situations. Rick Sammon has his new tip as well. For more, go see HDR Tip #2, along with links over to Rick’s blog.

I’ve always said there is no “right” way to make art, and I enjoy seeing other perspectives on it too — and I’m sure you’ll agree. Sometimes when I watch other people do things, I get a little confused and mistakenly see things. But I find that those mistakes make me think about things in a new way, so you never quite know where learning will take you.

Daily Photo – Tableau Vivant of California Dudes

I’ve had a nice ten days or so here in California. I started in LA, went up to San Francisco, then came back down here just before the Oscars. My agent invited me to some fancy-schmancy party in Hollywood. It was quite a problem to figure out what to wear to something like that. I felt like a girl. I mean, with the confused-about-what-to-wear thing… this is not something I usually think that much about.

It was interesting and fun. I didn’t even really fit in… here’s the basic conversation: “Are you a director?” No. “Are you an actor?” No. “Oh, you must be a producer!?” No.

But that night, I ended up staying at the Hotel California. I put a little photo there to the right… I found out I could check out any time I liked but…

And for our California photo below, here’s a bunch of guys that I guess have nothing better to do than walk around the beach all day with incredible bodies. Since I don’t have this, I can only rely on my personality, which frankly runs out after about five minutes.

Why 3D Doesn’t Work And Never Will

I saw Roger Ebert put up a very interesting article entitled “Why 3D Doesn’t Work and Never Will”. It makes a really good case… I think about this stuff all the time too. I have a disadvantage, since I can’t see 3D anyway, so I don’t really know what I am missing… but I can understand as much as possible… and the article seems to make solid points. Thanks Brainpickings for the link! What do you think?

Daily Photo – The Beachcomber Motel

When I was in San Clemente, I walked up the road to visit the Beachcomber Motel.  Even though I stayed in a friend’s place on the beach, I was getting kicked out the last night.  So I walked up here to check on accommodations.  It looked quite perfect!  I set up to take some photos, and management came out to stop me.  I had to do some fast-talking to let them know I was not a threat.  I have a certain boyish charm at times, but only at times.  In this case, it just barely worked.  I promised I would send the photos after I got them processed, which I finally have.  And here it is.

En Route to Queenstown

We are heading to Queenstown soon, and really looking forward to it. We are informally poking around for places to live… and renting a house in the meantime. We found this cool spot — QueenstownChicChalet.com on the site that suggested here on the blog called BookABach.com. I’ve never heard this word “Bach” before in reference to a rental house/apartment… am I alone in this?

Daily Photo – Under the Umbrella at Sunset

We took this during our fun PhotoWalk in San Clemente. It’s a wonderful beach there – not too crowded, a perfect beach, and an idyllic pier.  Just throw in a few clouds, and we end up with a perfect sunset!

Every 100 feet or so, these thatched-roof umbrellas are spread out.  Composing with these and a wide-angle lens is kind of challenging, but fun.  I noticed that after I got a wide-angle lens that it opened up a whole new range of compositional complexities. Walking around a scene has to be done with a whole new perspective, since you are able to capture more than a human can see in a single viewing-cone.  But, the challenge is kind of fun to compensate for the lens and try to put together something that feels right.

Site of the Week

We made the coveted Abduzeedo Sites of the Week!  Pop over there to see some of the other winners too.

Daily Photo – Into the Sea

I wonder what percentage of photographers live on the West Coast versus the East Coast. Of course, the west gets all the great sunsets over the ocean, and the east gets all the great sunrises. Given that most sane people are asleep at sunrise, and given that most photographers are insane — I am not sure! What do you think?

This one was taken at sunset on the beautiful San Clemente pier. The sunset was coming on, and it was a high-pressure time to get up onto the pier and find a good spot.

The Problem With PhotoWalks

I really enjoy leading PhotoWalks… I try to do my best to get around and talk to everyone. The biggest problem is simply that I don’t have time to get to know everyone as much as I would like! I can tell after meeting people that these are some interesting people…and we would probably have many things to discuss!

During the San Clemente one below, many people stayed after for a little pizza party. That was great fun and I did get to talk to people a little bit more in depth.

Daily Photo – Another Beautiful California Night

Here is photo from the very fun and engaging Photowalk in San Clemente, California.

Do you guys know who David Arkenstone is? He’s a musician that has done a few songs I’m sure you’ve heard. I’ve listened to some of his music for the last 5+ years, and I was SHOCKED when he showed up at the photowalk.  He enjoys photography and was a closet-fan of the site!

Even better, he brought me a bag full of CDs! How cool! Luckily, after that, I had a long road trip all the way up to San Francisco — I was able to listen to his CDs and just chill out… I was very happy (and felt lucky!) to meet him in person.

New Interview with Matt Brandon

Matt is a really nice guy, and I enjoyed our time together for the interview.  He runs a website called The Digital Trekker, and he has just recently posted the interview at that link.  His podcast is called “Depth of Field”, so be sure to check it out!

Want to know something really strange?  We were on the same flight from Tokyo to San Francisco a few weeks ago, and I didn’t even know it! 🙂 I found out about this later via Twitter — he walked by me, and I was deeply engrossed in something on my laptop!

Daily Photo – Under the Docks in California

Some of you remember the great photowalk we had down in San Clemente.  I really had a good time there.  On my photowalks, typically I stop from time to time and tell the assembled crowd what I am doing.  Well, I finally got a chance to process this quintet!

I felt fortunate to have a good friend that had an amazing condo that overlooked this same beach.  Frankly, after a long day and night of shooting, I felt spoiled and happy just taking a few more steps to my pad…  grabbing some cool drinks… opening the patio doors to listen to the surf… good times!

Win my book over on Layers Magazine

My friend RC Conception tweeted me about a contest he is running on Layers magazine along with Brad Moore to give away a copy of my book. You can see more by visiting his contest post on his website.

Reminder of Kelby Article

Speaking of Brad Moore, he was the nice gentleman that helped me with this long guest post on Scott Kelby’s blog a few months ago. If you missed it the first time, you might enjoy it now. It’s called “Being an artist sucks. Being an artist is awesome.”

Daily Photo – The Sunset in San Clemente California

We had a great photowalk down in San Clemente! Thanks again to everyone that came along… I enjoyed it very much. Now I am finally getting a chance to post-process some of the images. If you were there, you may remember when I took this one!

Want to see other photos from the Photowalkers? Visit Victor’s Typical Shutterbug site (also has a great podcast!) where you can get a link to the proper Flickr group.

The sunset was just as good as you can get, which was very lucky after many days of rain before. We were all quite worried about a rain-out! But, the gods shined on us and everything turned out great. It’s always nice to walk around with other photographers and geek out on this stuff!

The sky got a bit noisy for me in this one. I used Noiseware to get rid of it – for more info, see my Noiseware Review here on the site.