New Year thoughts and whereabouts
It’s been well over a month since my last blog entry and I feel it’s time to let the world know what I’ve been doing and thinking.
Since arriving back to Cebu in Mid-December I have been in the process of reorganizing my entire photo database. I am now using Adobe’s Lightroom v2.6 and have found it to be a wonderful piece of software. I had always wanted to learn this program, but came to the realization that I must use this after reading Mitchell’s ebook and watching Lynda.com Photoshop Lightroom Essential Training videos. Processing my RAW files is now easier than ever and having my photos organized gives me a lot less to worry about. I am still tagging my images, but they are all labeled by place and date as of now. There are over 40,000 images in my main catalog, 25,000 images in my hired catalog (weddings, events, hired work not related to travel or documentary) and another 20,000 in my personal catalog. I honestly don’t know how I kept everything straight before using Lightroom to organize everything. I highly recommend anyone with a large photo database to look into Lightroom for organizing, processing and exporting your photos. It makes life that much easier and as Chris Horwood says, “it’s a tool that ultimately lets the photographer get back to photography.” And that what we all want, right?
The topic of getting back to photography is something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. Since I decided to get more serious with photography about two years ago, I have spent a great deal of time doing everything I can to market my images, improve my website, establish connections with editors, sell prints in hotels, join contests, etc. and have spent less time than I would like in the field actually taking photos. This is of course a necessary and an important part of being a successful photographer, but I often find it inhibiting to what I really want to be doing. A balance is needed and I often forget that.
It seems appropriate that I began the new year with a simple small step of reorganizing my photo library. This is my initial attempt to become more focused, organized, and engaged in the type of imagery I want to produce. I suppose this is a type of New Year’s Resolution. A large part of this will be ‘getting back to photography’ and traveling to the places that need to have a story told. Upgrading gear and getting a contract with one of the big stock agencies are two more goals of mine for the year (both which will ultimately let me stayed more focused on the photography as well) . I’m excited for some upcoming trips I have planned this year and especially for moving forward with a clearer and more focused mindset.
Travels….My wife and I took a trip to the northern most part of Luzon, Philippines for her birthday a few weeks ago. Actually, we went to visit some of her friends from our Peace Corps days and celebrate her friends daughters first birthday. I of course was the official photographer and had a lot of fun spending time with everyone there. We were able to visit two provinces while on our visit, Cagayan and Ilocos. It was a first for me. Even in my extensive travels as a Peace Corps volunteer here in the Philippines I never made it that far north in Luzon. It’s a beautiful area with a rich history. I fell in love with the Cagayan river, which is the longest river in the country. I have plans to go back and fully explore the people who live and use the river everyday.
Returning to Cebu we jumped right into the Sinulog celebration. This is one of the largest festivals here in the Philippines to honor the Patron Saint of Santo Nino. Actually, we arrived back towards the end of Sinulog Week but in time for the Fluvial & Solemn Processions and the big Grand Parade. I love Cebu during this time because it comes alive with energy and there are lots of visitors roaming around the city. They hold a photo contest for Sinulog each year and it has really become a huge gathering. I believe there were over 1,300 registered photographers and over 10,000 entries this year. There is a lot of talk about the contest among Cebuanos and some nice cash prizes. I found it hard this year though to fully enjoy myself during the Grand parade because of the amount of photographers. The streets were crawling with cameras fighting to get the best shot. Anytime I tried to take a photo another photographer would in some way step in front or block me. I guess that’s why I like to shoot away from the large crowds. That being said, I always manage to get at least one winning entry every year.
Other contest news…I recently found out that I received two honorable mentions in the SilkAir Destinations Photo Contest. You can see the winning photos here.
I plan to update this blog periodically, but only when I have meaningful content. In trying to stay in focus this year I will most likely not be posting something every month. Although, I have hopes that by years end I will be more refined as a photographer and have more interesting content to share with you all. The journey continues….
Playing with Panoramas
I have been shooting a lot of panoramas lately, experimenting with what works and looks best. I have used Photoshop’s photomerge for a long time now and have always found it to be useful. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, when I was visiting my dad, did I try photomerge on his computer using CS3. I was amazed at the quality that was produced compared to what I generally get with CS2. I created about fifteen different panoramas while I was visiting my dad (all of the inside of his house), all with Photoshop’s photomerge, and only one of them didn’t come out perfect with its alignment. Sometimes I forget that technology can save a lot of time. Depending on the image I will spend a good 30 minutes with my final panorama fixing the alignment of where the combined layers meet in CS2. I can’t wait to get my hands on CS4…I think it is time for an upgrade.
That being said the two top images above were processed with CS2’s photomerge. The Monterey Bay panorama was put together with seven images and the Tennessee foliage panorama used 3 images. The bottom image of the boat and native hut was a single image that I cropped. These were all shot in the past couple of months.
If your looking for some specifics on how to use photomerge to create a panorama there are lots of great tutorials out there. I googled and found this one to be informative.
Humanizing Development Global Campaign
I received a congratulatory email today about two photos I had entered into the United Nations Humanizing Development Global Photography Campaign. I have posted my two images below, but you can see all of the winning entries here.
Here is a portion of the email I received.
The Presidency of Brazil is sponsoring the publication of a catalogue promoting all winner photos. The book is planned to be ready by February 2010 and will be signed by Ambassador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, Minister of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs at the Presidency of the Republic.
A permanent photo exhibition with the 50 selected photos was inaugurated at the IPC-IG office in Brazil on 4 November. New York, Bangkok, London, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Bonn are among the cities that will host Humanizing Development photo exhibitions all over 2010. A photo database will be shared among campaign partners and a number of UN offices and programmes all over the world. Thousands of photos were received from over 100 countries depicting fourteen MDG-related thematic areas. In four months, more than 120,000 people visited the campaign website.
The meaning of ‘Humanizing Development’ cannot, though, be expressed in numbers. It show examples of people winning the battle against poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation. It calls for the humane face of development. It spreads hope, initiative and determination. It transmits inspiration to each of us and feeds our dream of transforming the world we live in into a just place. A world that enables all of us, regardless of our birth place, social and economic status, sex, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion and ideology, opportunities to fulfilling our potential as individuals, human beings and members of our society.
Ebooks - Great Photography Resource
I am always looking at other photographers images to help me stay grounded and get inspired. I came across a couple of photographers sites in the past few months that I wanted to share. The first is the work of Mitchell Kanashkevich. Mitchell is a travel photographer from Australia and the way he uses light in his portraits is outstanding. The first time I visited his site I spent a good hour looking at his images and reading his blog. Not only are his images captivating and dramatic, but he has some great posts on his blog. Another site I came across is that of David duChemin. David’s blog is constantly updated with some great photography insights and resources.
Both Mitchell and David offer very reasonable ebooks that are well put together and informative. Mitchell recently had a sale for both of his ebooks and I was able to read through both of them. David has a few ebooks although I have only read the one shown below, “Drawing the Eye.” You can see all of his materials here. Likewise, Mitchell’s ebooks can be purchased here. The information in these ebooks is a steal for $5 and $12 and it also helps these photographers continue to do what they do best.
All Saints Day
Yesterday I got to witness thousands celebrate All Saints Day here in Cebu. People light candles, bring flowers and pray for their loved ones at cemetery’s all over. This was my first time to witness this holiday here and indeed a sight it was to see. There must have been a few thousand people at this small public cemetery I went to. Many people were camped out with their families and there were vendors selling everything from food to glow sticks. This is such a popular place for people to visit on this day that the Mayor even put up campaign signs for next years election.
In the Philippines this day, called “Undas”, “Todos los Santos” (literally “All Saints”), and sometimes “Araw ng mga Namayapa” (approximately “Day of the deceased”) is observed as All Souls’ Day. This day and the one before and one after it is spent visiting the graves of deceased relatives, where prayers and flowers are offered, candles are lit and the graves themselves are cleaned, repaired and repainted. (Wikipedia)
Lobster tails and fall colors
I’ve spent the last week visiting my mom and family on the shoreline of Connecticut. The weather has been great here and the fall colors are entering into their peak. Not only have I enjoyed seeing my family, but I’ve enjoyed shooting in an area which holds a lot of childhood memories to me. I love everything about fall in New England! I have one more day here before flying back to Cebu and I plan to eat plenty of good New Haven pizza tomorrow to satiate my cravings for the next long while.
