Photography

Recently, I attempted to roughly outline the parameters of the gap between the recipes you see here on this site and what I might have made for dinner last night. In the first category, we’ve got words like aspirational and exceptional or unusual and best in category or just seriously we all need to make this right now. It’s fun, noteworthy stuff. Sure, it’s also our dinner, you know, on the days such exciting things come to pass in my kitchen, but it’s the second category — staples, comforts and easy wins, things that miraculously make all three people around the table happy at the same time — that dominate our table the rest of the time. Now, I was perfectly content to keep this dull stuff to myself — workaday salads, breaded thigh cutlets, flatbread with whatever vegetable needs to be used up first — but you asked. And while at first I resisted because I just thought you were being polite in a “We’d love to hear every precious new word your kid used incorrectly this week” or “No, please tell me more about how web analytics work,” kind of way, I’ve since concluded that this is silly. Everyone needs dinner inspiration. Maybe something here could be yours. I hope it will be. ... Read the rest of greek salad with lemon and oregano on smittenkitchen.com © smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to greek salad with lemon and oregano | no comment to date | see more: Cucumber, Greek, Peppers, Photo, Salad, Summer, Tomatoes

Creating a reflection using Photoshop is one of those things that at first glance looks really hard, but really isn’t, once you break down the steps (just light Light Painting which I covered in another two part series). In this article I’m going to demystify creating a reflection, a technique that works particularly well on images with open pavement, and HDR processed images which tend to make the pavement look wet already. We’re going to learn how to go from this . . . To this! In less than 10 minutes! I recently showed one my HDR classes how to do this, and they all followed along with me step by step.  Some of them were using Elements (which works just fine, but you may find the menus and choices look slightly different), and this technique can be done using that program too, so if you use Elements, not to worry. Many of my students were also self proclaimed “Photoshop novices” and when I asked them if they thought they’d be able to this when I showed the before and after images, most said “no”!  But they all did, and we were done in less than 10 minutes. **Note that also included me going super slow to ensure each of the 12 people in the class were on the same page with me. I’m going to guess this will take less than 5 – ready GO! Here are the six easy steps to follow in Photoshop.  This is the super condensed version for those quick readers and skimmers. copy a section of the image paste it as a new layer flip it position it change the layer blend mode mask it That’s it! You want a few more details? Let’s dive in a little deeper into each step STEP ONE – COPY Using the marque tool (“M” is the keyboard shortcut) draw a box around an area of your image that will become the reflection (see Figure #1 below). Make sure you go edge to edge on the sides, and get enough of the image vertically. If you grab more than you need that’s fine we’ll be moving it around and masking later anyway. Figure #1 make a selection Copy the selection as a new layer. You can do that a few ways. right click on the image and from the menu that pops up choose “layer via copy” (see Figure #2 below) from the edit menu choose “copy” or using the keyboard shortcut “command/control+c”  (see Figure #3 below) Figure #2 right click>Layer Via Copy Figure #3 Copy from Edit menu STEP TWO – PASTE AS NEW LAYER If you chose the “layer via copy” method above you already have the selection pasted as a new layer. If you haven’t already done that go ahead and paste either from the Edit>Paste menu option of the keyboard shortcut “command/control+v”. You will end up with something that looks like this, Figure #4 below. Figure #4 paste new layer Doesn’t look much different right? Right! Because it’s basically on top of itself.  But look at your layers, it is there on a new layer and it only grabbed part of the image. Now the magic begins! STEP THREE – FLIP IT Next from your Edit menu choose “Edit>Transform>Flip vertical” to flip this new layer upside down. You should end up with something funny looking like Figure #5 below. Figure #5 flip vertically STEP FOUR – POSITION IT Figure #6 move tool Next select your MOVE tool from your tool palette (see Figure #6 right – “v” is the keyboard shortcut) and grab the flipped layer and drag it down until the images start to line up where the reflection will begin. In my image I’m using the edge of the sidewalk in front of the diner. If it doesn’t line up perfectly don’t worry about it, you can mask any imperfect bits out later in step six. Now you want to have something that looks like Figure #7 below. The reflection is in roughly the right position. Make sure you don’t move side to side, just down, otherwise you’ll have gaps on the edges of your reflection. NOTE: once you&

by Jonathan Blaustein Jonathan Blaustein: When did you first start taking photographs? When did it all begin? Alec Soth: In high school, I had this experience that a lot of people have. I had a great teacher that woke me up. In that case, he was a painting teacher. He did a little session, once, on photography, and I wasn’t particularly drawn to it. But I knew that I wasn’t a painter, deep down. So I did other things. I made sculptures outdoors, and stuff like that. I went to school thinking I’d be some sort of painter or installation artist. While I was in school, I discovered photography in a new way, partly through photographing these sculptures I was making outdoors. JB: This is at Sarah Lawrence? AS: Sarah Lawrence. Correct. JB: You studied with Joel Sternfeld? AS: Yes. Joel taught there, but it was impossible to get a class with him. He was too popular. So I took two different summer courses in photography, while I was home in Minnesota. One was at the University of Minnesota, and the other was at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I got excited about photography, and then finally got into Joel’s classes. I took two classes with him, and it was amazing and fantastic. JB: What were some of the core concepts that embedded in your young artist consciousness when you worked with him? AS: It’s curious. At that time, when I fell in love with photography, I was a typical American who was influenced by American things. I was really influenced by that American tradition of photography, in which Joel was a major player. You know, that whole MoMA, Stephen Shore, Eggleston to Walker Evans trajectory. And I was in love with that. Road photography. The standard stuff. The curious thing about Joel, as a teacher, he was adamant that people not mimic him. He’s interested in a lot of different things. This was, at the time, 1990 or so. Post-modern, Cindy Sherman, staged photography was the rage. He really encouraged that. The truth is that I did that sort of work back then. And I didn’t do work like him, or straight photography much at all, at that time. But I wanted to. I just felt that it wasn’t right to. His influence is a peculiar one. I loved his work, I loved him, but almost out of respect, I didn’t want to work like him. It was only when I was away from school that I started dealing with his influence, and the influence of that generation of photographers. JB: Do you now feel comfortable seeing your work in that continuum? It’s funny that you mention MoMA, because I was just there, and there was one wall in the permanent collection installation that was totally insane. It has one of Joel’s pictures, and then the Bechers, Stephen Shore, Robert Adams, Eggleston, and then below it were all the Ed Ruscha artist books. It was like 200 square feet of real estate that captured the fantasies and wet dreams of tens of thousands of American photographers. AS: (laughing.) JB: So next time MoMA hangs something like that, if one of your pictures is up there next to those guys, what does that do to your head? AS: (pause.) I don’t know. First of all, with all respect to MoMA, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean. It’s a different world. Without a doubt, my work, whatever its quality, falls in that historical lineage. There’s no getting away from it. That’s cool. I’m an American photographer. I don’t want to be limited strictly to that. Hopefully I’m not just covering old ground. But I’m fine with that comparison. JB: You dodged the whole ego question, about people putting your work in that pantheon, which is cool. But I think it’s easy to differentiate you, as it’s easy to differentiate the time in which we’re living. One of my little catchphrases, because as a blogger, it never hurts to have a catchphrase, is I love to talk about the 21st Century Hustle. I’ve got to trademark it one of these days

Flickr Pro, which had allowed users to pay for more storage space, is going away. “There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore,” Mayer said (though she acknowledged that there are “different skill levels”). via @zarias more: Tech News and Analysis. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Revolutionary New Website Design: HTML5 Fast, Easy to Build, Smart Phone/Pad Friendly, Multimedia Galleries and Retina Ready. Free demo (here).

‘Make Flickr awesome again.’ That was the Internet’s message to Marissa Mayer when she was appointed CEO of Yahoo! last year. Last night’s announcement of a new-look Flickr with a new business model was her, and her team’s, response to that claxon. But are the changes all that awesome? To summarise, ‘New Flickr’ has done away with the divide between ‘Free’ and ‘Pro’ accounts. Before, ‘Free’ membership meant limited image display that was supported by ads. ‘Pro’ accounts cost about $25 a year, enjoyed unlimited storage, provided statistical analysis, and were ad-free. Now, everyone has one terabyte of storage for free and photos are undoubtedly the heart-and-soul of the newly designed site. The new-look moasic-style photostream If you want to enjoy Flickr ad-free and have access to statistics, you need to pay $50 a year. For $500 a year, you can buy a Doublr account and double your storage space. Understandably, the split between the ‘Wow’ and the ‘Grr’ reactions seems to fall along the divide between ordinary members and ‘Pro’ members. For ordinary members—those who didn’t pay about $25 a year for unlimited uploads, statistical analysis, and no ads—it’s a win. One terabyte of storage for free, full-resolution display, and some of the organisational tools that were previously the preserve of ‘Pro’ members: what’s to complain about? There are two primary complaints that Flickr needs to solve, and quickly. The first is the treatment of its old ‘Pro’ members. I paid for Pro membership because I wanted the unlimited storage, I appreciated the statistical analysis, and I liked the ad-free experience. ‘Pro’ exists no longer, and instead there is a great deal of confusion as to which old ‘Pro’ members will be grandfathered in to the new deal on their old terms. It seems as if some might, and some won’t. Apart from not being able to determine easily if our previous contracts will be honoured, why the differentiation at all? Flickr’s ‘Pro’ membership was a relatively small percentage of its overall membership; giving all these loyal users the benefit of the doubt seems only fair. The old ‘Pro’ members were the old Flickr stalwarts, who stuck by the site when it felt as if Yahoo! had put it out to seed, but continued to pay them their money and keep the community alive with images and conversation. What could have been a positive transition, with clear communication and recognition for their loyalty, feels more like a shafting. It is, however, an easy fix. The new-look sets lay-out Second, can Flickr please fix its metadata-stripping antics? Display an image online and you run the risk of it being purloined and used without permission; that’s a fact of life. However, there are measures that many of us take to protect our images. Some of us use watermarks, some of us only upload small versions of our images, I’ve disabled the downloading function on Flickr, and most of us append metadata to our pictures. Metadata are a bit like a dogtag, identifying who took an image, where, and when. Unfortunately, Flickr strips images of their metadata, (or takes the collar off of the dog, if you like) so if someone does manage to download one of your pictures, it’s owner can’t be identified. Now that pictures are being displayed bigger and brighter and bolder on Flickr, this is more important than ever. Ensuring that metadata aren’t separated from images really would be awesome. In terms of the look and the feel of the new Flickr: I love it. If the images can’t do the talking, then why bother? And the new moasic layouts and easy enlargement options make it all about the images. When Yahoo! addresses the issues that people are finding troubling, Mayer might’ve answered t

Tuesday: 5.21.13 Creative Director: Stephen Scoble Design Director: Patricia Sanchez Director of Photography: Fredrika Stjarne Deputy Photo Editor: Anthony LaSala Photographer: Martin Morell (click ad to see today’s visual interview ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Revolutionary New Website Design: HTML5 Fast, Easy to Build, Smart Phone/Pad Friendly, Multimedia Galleries and Retina Ready. Free demo (here).

NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.What wedding photography style choices are there? Great question, and we’re glad you asked. Simply Bridal published the following infographic on their website, and we’re happy to share it with you here on Best of Wedding Photography. You see, BOWP members consist of each of the photography styles: Photojournalism Classic Artistic/Editorial So this infographic is a perfect way to demonstrate, in a creative way, the differences between them all so couples have an easier time picking the style they prefer. We hope you enjoy the infographic! Once you’ve decided on a style, visit the list of photographers in your area and browse their portfolios.

The house was filled with such beautiful decor it gave the impression it was made from the forest in which it resided. The floor, the ceiling, the chandelier were made of various woods, like the trees that once were took pride in their final form. Lanier's mom glided across the living room with trays of food, or jewelry, or a bouquet of flowers, ensuring her daughter was well taken care of. Because, well, the house was a place of respite and would continue to be on the wedding day. Their vacation home in Blowing Rock, North Carolina was a special place, but for two memories in particular. A few years ago, Lanier valiantly battled cancer and after being treated by amazing doctors at UNC (Go Tarheels!), she recuperated in her family's cabin. Surrounded by trees and the sounds of birds singing, Lanier promised God to live a beautiful life if she was granted time. Not only was Lanier granted time, God brought someone special into her life. Once Scott and Lanier met, their lives flipped upside down. Together they inspired their friends and family to shine brightly and give generously, but it wasn't until Scott spent the weekend with her family in their vacation home that he realized Lanier was destined to become his wife. The trees and the forest on their wedding day reached their arms toward heaven and swayed in delight as two beautiful souls promised each other eternity. Lanier and Scott, I have no words. To adequately sum up everything you are, the beauty of your day, and the fun of your wedding would be impossible, but what I hope is that these photos document your unadulterated love. Thank you for making us feel like part of the family (your dad invited us for holiday dinners, so don't be surprised if we show up again soon!) and surrounding us in your amazing care. The world is so much better with you two in it. Much Love and Appreciation... j*Lanier donned a stunning Ines Di Santo gown. She made personal customizations to it with her seamstress for a unique look and I think it was perfectly suited for her! And just look at this stunner of a ring...Lanier and I tried conspiring to have her dog a part of the wedding, but her father wasn't having any of it...at least she was around for prep photos!The day started at Lanier's family's vacation home in Blowing Rock, North Carolina and just one weekend in that glorious state and now I swear I have roots there. I'm trying to be Southern without appearing like I'm trying too hard, y'all. And, boom, I failed.Lanier and her father have such a special relationship...it made me teary-eyed at some points. The ring she is wearing on her right hand was given to her by her father years ago as a promise to wait for the perfect man to become her husband...as a wedding surprise for Scott, she removed one of the diamonds and set it on the inside of his wedding ring. She stayed true to her promise to her father.The wedding and reception was held at Crestwood Inn and Resort in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. The wedding was supposed to outdoors, but it was pouring rain just hours before the ceremony...lo and behold, when the ceremony started, the sun peeked and made for an amazing background. Just look how happy Lanier's dad is...As they walked down the aisle, a choir sang and the sun burst from the clouds...like heaven itself was celebrating too!Lanier and Scott carved out time for wedding photos and a moment to relax together and now I'm convinced every backdrop for North Carolina wedding photos is just perfect. Amen.Oh, Lanier, just GO ON with your gorgeous self!The details and the flow of the wedding day wouldn't have been possible without Ivy Robinson and her effortless coordination and design. She was the hardest working woman at the event and handled everything with such class...loved working with her!The wedding was filled from top to bottom with so many flowers...it was like walking through the most stunning garden. Ever. Many thanks to John Lupton + Andrew

Best DX Ultrawide A friend asks which ultrawide lens is best for their DX camera. My reply: Nikon 12-24 - best built lens mechanically and most expensive Nikon 10-24 - widest range, least expensive and most cheaply made (made in China). The ultrawide I usually use on DX for its wider range. Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 - least expensive, great performance and built tougher than the 10-24 - for less money. Think Tank Retrospective Test Drives Think Tank is offering free 30-day test drives of their Retrospective bags. With the Test Drive, you get to try out a Retrospective bag for 30 days. If you keep the Retrospective, they charge your card — or just return the Retrospective and nothing gets charged. For those who carry a lot Not for me, but Think Tank is also releasing a new version of their largest rolling camera bag, the gigantic Logistics Manager 30.