Custom Shirts

I ran into a site the other day that I really enjoyed seeing. I always enjoy seeing intricate and fancy designs so when I saw Twice His Designs, I had to take a closer look.

Even though I am not able to wear a t-shirt at my day job, I still enjoy wearing them, especially when they have a good message and look really cool. I think my favorite one is Apocalypse or Wages, but as they are adding more designs all the time, so I will probably have a new favorite soon.

Head over to their web page and check out their designs. If you are on Twitter give them a shout at @bornover.

Do you like their shirts? Do you have a favorite site? Leave a note in the comments here or give me a shout over on Twitter.

Book Review - Mastering Digital Flash Photography

I just bought this book and have been anticipating sitting down for more than a few minutes with it, but it seems that everytime I go to sit down, something else comes up as soon as I open it up. Nonetheless, I have read enough now to be able to say I am happy I picked this book out.

I am an analytical person and thus am happy when I get a formula or chart with numbers. This book has some great charts. Very few photographers are going to carry around a book to reference charts, but reviewing the charts when looking at a picture that didn't turn out quite as expected can help. By understanding why it did not turn out the way you expected, you will be in a better position to take a similar picture the next time the opportunity presents itself.

An example of a good chart that will be handy to understand is the Max Flash range chart. It shows how to take the Guide Number of a flash, the aperture and ISO you are using, and figure out about how far away from your flash will still get light from the flash.

Another thing that I like about this book is advice that I put into a category called "rules of thumb". (I know I didn't coin that phrase, but I like it.) Advice like this on page 27 "it is almost always better to have clipped shadows than clipped highlights". In other words, it is easier to recover a picture that is too dark than one that is too bright. That is one I can file away in my mental checklist as I am reviewing shots on my LCD to know if I need to tweak settings and reshoot.

Pictures always tell a story and photography books are certainly no exception. That said, a picture with explanation is good, but several pictures with the explanation of why they are different and how they were taken differently really makes a lot of sense. One great example of that is on pg 55 where pictures show the difference between direct flash and indirect (bounced) flash.

Before I bore you all to tears, I will just mention one more thing that I really like about this book. Diagrams. Lots of them, showing where the camera, lighting, reflector and subject were in relation to each other for a photo.

An old boss used to say "Stephen, give me the short version"when I started to give him more details than he wanted. So for those of you out there that are still reading, here is the short version: "Mastering Digital Flash Photography is a great book with a lot of very helpful information on flash photography. I'm not sure how helpful it would be if you are already a master of the flash, but for anyone that is just getting started with flash photography or has a few problem areas with their flash, this book is worth the money."

Do you have any good books? Photography-related or not, I am always interested in a good book, so please leave me a comment here below this post or give me a shout over at Twitter.

Book Review - Portrait Photography: Secrets of Posing & Lighting

Right off the bat, I liked this book when I read the first chapter about lighting accessories. The author included a great deal of detail on the benefits of all the different flash and lighting options and gave some examples of when they may be best used. The other thing that jumped out at me was all the pictures. Some things I have read will show a picture and explain how they took it and what tool (flash, etc) they used. This book goes a step beyond that and shows examples of too much flash, not enough flash and explains what you are seeing.

Chapter 2 is called Poses and Expressions and is filled with examples of details that amateurs can easily overlook. It is filled with gems like this: "If the head is tilted too far forward, ... the pose becomes submissive." When I read that, I thought about it and realized that is true. More importantly, depending on the goal of the photo, this may be what you want, but for a typical, customer portrait, that is generally not the case and while the average customer may not put it in those words, they will probably feel like that picture is "off" or just say they don't like that one as much as others in the set.

The section on troubleshooting is really useful. It includes how to deal with glare from glasses which presents a real challenge to many photographers. There are also many tips and suggestions for posing people to accentuate or de-emphasize different body features.

I still hope to get a lot of value out of this book as I start doing more portraits, but I already feel like I have learned enough from this book in the first several chapters to make it worth the cost. If you want to give Portrait Photography: Secrets of Posing & Lighting a closer look, head over to Amazon.

This is a book that will be on my bookshelf for a long time. I will certainly be re-reading many parts many times as I work on continuously improving my portrait skills.

Blog 2008 year in review

In most sports, numbers are used to analyze everything from a baseball batters performance to the percentage of free throws a basketball player makes. In businesses, managers will use numbers to analyze their profitability as well as well as to identify profitable products and markets. I have likewise been trying to balance what I am interested in with what the people that come to my blog like to see.

To that end, earlier this year, I implemented Google Analytics to track statistics on my visitors. Don't worry I do not track any personal information about anyone stopping by here (I don't even think I can) but rather just information about how many people, what part of the country or world where they are logged in. So how did I do for 2008?

212 Visits
9 Countries
22 states
12 posts

Since I only started blogging here in December, things are still getting rolling and 2009 promises to be a great year with a lot of exciting photos and stories to share. These statistics also include my main web page as well as the blog.

The main goal of this blog was initially to have a place to share things I learn about photography, some of my favorite photos and to have a place to discuss any random photographic topic that strikes my interest.

It has been fun watching the statistics here. The one I enjoy looking at most is the countries and states visited. I had visitors from 22 states in December of 2008. It was also fun to see visitors from all over the world. I hope that some of them find something interesting or entertaining and keep coming back from time to time.

Now here is the audience participation part. If you are reading this, please take a minute and post at least a short comment to let me know where you are. Also, feel free to post a comment to any blog entry you like or dislike and let me know what you like or don't like about it. You can also leave comments and rate individual photos in the photo galleries.

Thanks for stopping by and i hope to see you again soon.