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Most of the photography blogs that I read have a thread about sensor cleaning. It's the bane of digital cameras. While computers and digital imaging have opened up an amazing new world of vision for us, it's also given photographers some new frustrations. I can't remember ever being so frustrated by dust on the lens or mirrors of my old Canon A1. The occasional inexpensive cleaning and tuneup at my local camera shop always took care of the problem. All my old Canons from the late 70s and early 80s are still working just fine, BTW. With the cost of cleaning digital cameras through the local camera shops being about $100 the last time I checked, I quickly looked for another way to get my sensor clean. My Canon Mark II is too old to have an automatic cleaning ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: cameras cleaning digital dust
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This article has been read 47 times.
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It seems that either competition season is upon us, or I'm the new Dreamstime contest guru. Interesting photo contests keep popping up in magazines and on web sites that I frequent. Entering contests not for all of us, but for photographers who are so inclined, it's a great source of publicity.....and some extra cash for the winners. The latest one that I've run across is the Smithsonian Magazine 6th Annual Photo Contest. The entry deadline is December 1. There are 5 categories in which to enter and various levels of prizes. It's worth taking a look at the prospectus. It means wonderful exposure in the Smithsonian Magazine at the very least. http://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/v6/index.html Pat Ballard
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Tags: contest exposure photography smithsonian
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This article has been read 79 times.
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This must be competition season because I'm finding things to enter that look worthwhile almost everyday this week. Or is it just that I'm now on a ton of photography email lists? This was sent to me in the Santa Fe Photography Workshops email news letter. If they think it's worth entering, it is! Center is another photography non-profit in Santa Fe. It is sponsoring four juried events during the next year. It is mostly aimed at professional fine art photographers who have developed a style and a large portfolio. We all know that the average microstock photographer has many facets to their work, so this may apply to many of you, too. They also sponsor portfolio reviews in Santa Fe and Los Angeles during the year. I do remember my daughter attending the Santa Fe portfolio ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: competition fe portfolio santa
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This article has been read 70 times.
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LACDA
posted on 3rd of september, 2008
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The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art is hosting a non-juried show. It's called "Snap to Grid." I have to admit that the title really attracts me. Most of us are currently emphasizing the commercial side of our art, but a little extra publicity never hurts. I've never entered a show sponsored by LACDA, but I know of photographers and illustrators who have. It seems to be a good organization. I'm entering this one. Just thought some of the Dreamstime crowd might be interested. Here's the link to their web site. http://lacda.com/juried/juriedshow.html Pat Ballard
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Tags: digital juried lacda non show
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This article has been read 40 times.
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After I wrote my original blog on archival CDs and DVDs, a friend on another site wrote that it's possible for even these two forms of back up to fail at the same time. It's a remote possibility, but it can happen. He suggested online storage as another form of backup. While this sounds great in theory, and I'm sure that the best online storage sites will ba around for most of our careers as photographers, and designers; it has it's problems, too. I have heard of sites failing and photographers losing huge portions of their work, but it's probably as safe as any form of backup. Operating systems change, discs become unreadable, hard drives fail, and online storage goes belly up. The conclusion that I've come to after studying this issue is that we'... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: archiving storage workflow
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Comments (6)
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Yes, exactly! I've decided that keeping current on the latest forms of backup is vital. - posted by
Patballard
on August 26, 2008 |
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I worry about this, too. If I think back 20 years, my old film negatives are still useful, but I would have no idea how to get access to the floppy disks we used in that time. I don't think that our need for long-term storage is meshing very well with the fast pace of technological development.
I _hope_ that today's hard drives are readable in 20 years, or that we have migrated our content as technologies change. - posted by
Charlesoutcalt
on August 26, 2008 |
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Thanks for the input. Backing up is getting more and more complicated. - posted by
Patballard
on August 25, 2008 |
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This article has been read 68 times.
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This blog is for everyone who is so busy producing work that they don't always have the time to stay caught up on the technical side of digital imaging and photography. During a workshop that I took last week, the topic of long term media storage came up. I had totally missed the introduction of archival CDs and DVDs. I knew that regular discs didn't last forever and had planned to sort and re-burn my early work. This is not good enough, my teacher feels that we need to save to an external hard drive and burn to a gold archival CD or DVD. These discs are not inexpensive as they cost over a dollar apiece, but they are supposed to last over 100 years. Plus, never write on any disc with a sharpie as the ink will eventually eat through the disc making it unreadable. There ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: archival cds dvds storage
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Comments (2)
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Thanks for this info--I've been wondering if the DVD's would last, now I know! - posted by
Noonie
on August 11, 2008 |
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Thanks for sharing this information. Nope, you're not the last...had no idea about the sharpie marker issue. Love my external hard drive. Recently had a "mother board hard drive melt down combo". Wanted to hug my external hard drive, simply unplugged it from one computer and moved it to the spare -- all my images safe and accessible! Again thanks for sharing such helpful information. - posted by
Marilyngould
on August 08, 2008 |
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This article has been read 77 times.
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The workshop is finished! I spent last week at the Santa Fe Photography Workshops. It was an incredible experience. I'd recommend it for any amateur photographer who just wants to learn more and for any professional who wants to explore a new area of potential income. It's an intense week of work. Many of the days are 12 hours long or longer. I plan to take more classes in the future, but before I do it again, I'll spend more time training for the physical part of it. We hiked slot canyons, tried to stop for a picnic one afternoon and ended up on a Bollywood movie set that was on our picnic grounds, spent an afternoon at Jackalope pottery in Santa Fe, and Shidoni foundry and sculpture garden. Much of our class time was spent learning how to improve ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: fe photography santa workshops
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This article has been read 84 times.
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Below is a small list of color theory web sites. It's been a fun hunt, and I'll continue it with periodic updates. Wikipedia turned out to be a great starting point. Some of these sites are serious some are just for fun, but I want to study all of them when I have the time. wikipediaPantone http://www.colormatters.com http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/color/ http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_colornames.asp http://worqx.com/color/ Pat Ballard
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Tags: birren color itten light
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Comments (3)
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Thanks for the post. Whenever I get stuck for ideas, I go back to the basics and start reading again. - posted by
Patballard
on July 24, 2008 |
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thanks, useful and interesting ;D - posted by
Dabobabo
on July 24, 2008 |
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Thanks for the links. Here is another specific to photography:
Luminous-Landscape Color Theory - posted by
Bradcalkins
on July 23, 2008 |
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This article has been read 128 times.
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An interesting thread on another blog that I follow popped up this week. One of the contributors wanted to know what colors sold the most images. It's been about 4 years, but I attended a one day design workshop in New York where many top people from the design industry and software industry spoke about commercial art and color choices. The man who does the graphic design for Martha Stewart, or did at the time, spoke on color choices. A woman who writes books on color for Pantone was there, too. I can't remember their names, but I do remember the basic ideas of their speeches. The designer said that over 60% of Americans when polled on their favorite color listed blue as their first choice. Green was a distant second with all other choices being ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: blue color fashion pantone
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Comments (1)
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Interesting... It would be hard to separate the content from the color in photos where you can't often have identical choices with different color themes. Of the ones I've sold, well under a quarter have a dominant blue theme, and of those all had sky in them. Orange does seem popular in my photos, although Halloween may be cheating a bit :) - posted by
Bradcalkins
on July 19, 2008 |
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This article has been read 88 times.
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One of the most refreshing things about any commercial art is that it's commercial with no pretense. My daughter spent two years as a photography major at a famous art school only to quit. She got very tired of people who had to "suffer" for their art and acted like any type of commercial activity was selling out. The glamorous starving artist in a garrett in Paris (I wish) only came in with the rise of Impressionism during the late 19th century. Impressionism was a direct reaction to the invention of photography. The painter was suddenly freed from having to produce pictorial realism. They studied the science of light and the mechanics of the eye as well as painting. This radical new style of painting caused a violent reaction among the art loving French. It was years ... [ Read more... ]
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Tags: art impressionism photography science
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Comments (3)
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We live in a whole new era...
The word ART (unfortunately) can be anything...
Art no longer has its special value... anyone can drop a brush on canvas and tag it as a modern art... you can just simply click the button on your camera (with all automated settings) and tag it as art....
This is very pluralistic times, loaded with "politically correct" wordings... - Very Very sad times.... and it's getting worth everyday. - posted by
Mayatairy
on July 15, 2008 |
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Right on Pat! Stock photography, for me, has introduced new concepts of "art". It is incredibly amazing to see and be able to access some really great art here at Dreamstime that is created by people all around the world.
Ken - posted by
Kenhurst
on July 13, 2008 |
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Nice article, Pat. - posted by
Cmarshall717
on July 12, 2008 |
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This article has been read 143 times.
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