Five biggest Internet photographers – It may not be who you think

The Photo District News has posted an interesting article on the five biggest Internet photographers (On the site the editors called the article “The Five Biggest Photographers…” which is an entirely different article.) and, with one exception, it may not include people who you think should be on the list.

First on the list is the exception.  David Hobby, who is much better known as The Strobist, has devoted his website devoted to the correct and artistic use of small flashes. It has an estimated readership of around 350,000.

Next up is fine-art photographer Rebekka Gudleifsdottir. This 31-year-old photographer has collected over six million views on her Flickr site that features her out-of-worldly photos of her beautiful self and her friends.

Noah Kalina had is six years of fame by posting a photo of himself everyday for six years on YouTube. Six years! And, I thought I was a little strange. Ah!

He calls himself The Becker and California wedding photographer Christopher Becker’s blog gets around 5,000 readers a day. His newest endeavour is an online wedding photography school.

Philadelphia’s Jim MacMillan’s authoritative old school style of online journalism has garnered him over 46,000 followers on Twitter. Gritty photojournalism at its best.

What others see

                                                                     

I’ve been working for some days now creating a list of Ontario-based wedding photographers. In doing so, I’ve been taking some time to visit the web sites and  I’ve come to a startling conclusion: Some wedding photographers are much better than others and I do mean much better. So what makes them so good? It’s a lot of little things but overall it comes down to ability “to see”.

These photographers can “see” something that eludes most of the rest of us. It’s more than just a moment. It’s certainly more than mere technique. It’s the ability to perceive something special and capture it in the camera.

Here are a couple of just wonderful Ontario wedding photographers:

Bassem Wahba: http://www.bassem.ca/home.html#/client/template.xml?aaa=home

Van Someren Photography: http://www.vansomeren.ca/index2.php?v=v1

Aren’t they terrific? If you want to take your wedding photography to the next step, I am going to be offering some “next step” wedding photography workshops for Ontario-based photographers. For more information contact me at peter@peterwest.ca .

Panning

I was reading one of my amateur radio friend’s blogs when I chanced upon this great image of Mike Walker on his bicycle. As Mike describes on his blog (www.walkerphoto.blogspot.com) the background isn’t actually moving, he is. How does this work? It takes some practice but this is called panning. Here the photographer moves the camera from left to right at exactly the same speed as the subject. A slow time exposure is used to create the blurry background. Here, I’d guess that the shutter speed was somewhere around 1/2 second. You’d have to experiment to determine the correct shutter speed based on the available light and how much blur you wanted to create.

Now before the emails start arriving, let me explain how the photographer can take a photo at such a slow shutter speed. It’s true that most camera blur is caused by setting a shutter speed too slow for the photographer to overcome his or her own body movement. The old rule of thumb from my film days says regardless of what mode you’re shooting in, the camera’s shutter speed must be set to match the size of the lens. In other words if you were shooting with a 50mm lens you’d need to make certain your shutter speed didn’t go below 1/50 of a second. If you’re shooting with a 200mm telephoto you’d need to set you shutter speed at 1/200 (or 1/250 as that’s the typical shutter speed you’d find on your camera).

So how did the photographer get away with shooting at a 1/2 second? By panning the camera and keeping the subject in the middle of the screen there’s an illusion of sharpness created. Mike looks like he’s in focus and sharp. Well not quite. Look at the bicycle tires. Not only are they not truly round as their shape is being distorted by the slow shutter speed but they are blurry because their motion isn’t being matched exactly by the movement of the camera.

Not only is Mike a great amateur radio operator and first-class contester but he’s a professional photographer as well. Go on over to his blog and enjoy his photos and commentary.

Tejada Small Strobe Workshop = Big Results

I keep telling my students that in addition to the Henry’s School of Imaging workshops that they should consider some advanced workshops to help them improve their images.

The David Tejada Small Strobes Big Results workshop is one I can personally highly recommend. I took it yesterday in Buffalo, NY and it was wonderful. Don’t believe me. Go to my photo site at www.peterwestphoto.ca and see for yourself. These are all photos I took myself thanks to David’s expertise and guidance. BTW if you want to register for a Tejada workshop don’t hesitate. I suspect they all sell out just like the Buffalo workshop.

So yesterday (Sunday) round 14 or 15 photographers from around the U.S. and a couple of us from Canada joined David and his partner Eric at Nickel City Studios which is home base for two really nice young wedding photographers Rich and Alyss who opened their home/studio to us. Thanks guys. You were great hosts and I neglected to thank you at the time. Here’s their Facebook page.

After a couple of hours of workshop instruction (and following some great pizza) we were off to The Buffalo Central Terminal building. Opened in 1929 the building features a 17-story clock tower. The derelict art deco building has been abandoned for years but a new non-profit corporation “The Friends of the Buffalo Central Terminal” are restoring this magnificent structure.

So for the next five hours or so David walked us through a half a dozen different setups using a couple of really great models (Thanks Ann and Andrew) who couldn’t do enough to make us look like we were really great photographers.

Now for anyone interested, this isn’t a course I’d recommend if you don’t know how your camera works. you should have a firm grasp of aperture and shutter speed controls as well as ISO and especially flash.

Here are links to David’s blog: http://www.davidtejada.blogspot.com/ 

and his web site: http://www.tejadaphoto.com/

And thanks to David. You’ve made me a much, much better photographer.

I’m going to miss those green colours of summer

Yes it’s true. An age in photography has passed with word this week that Kodak will no longer be making Kodachrome film. Famous in the Paul Simon song of the same name, Kodachrome was the darling of the early colour photographers who relished its warm deep colours. Today with this announcement, the world is just a little less colourful. To quote Paul: “Everything looks worse in black and white.”

How Ansel Adams worked

Here’s a video from Marc Silber’s site on Ansel Adams. Adams is arguably the most famous American photographer of the American southwest. This video shows Adams actually at work in his home studio/darkroom. This is a great video: http://www.silberstudios.tv/previous-shows/ansel-adams-home/

Did you know that Adams used a microwave oven to dry some of his photos?

Algonquin Photo Tour

Two of the editors from Outdoor Photography Magazine are organizing a three-day photo shoot in Algonquin Park September 25 to 27 and Marion and I have signed up to go. Mike Grandmaison and Ethan Meleg are both fabulous photographers with super websites. The tour includes some instruction on the Saturday plus lots of shooting time.

2009 Community Spirit Awards

The United Way of Oakville Training and Consulting Volunteers

Aren’t we a handsome group? The Training and Consulting volunteers of the United Way of Oakville were up for a 2009 Community Spirit Award. Held on June 17 at the fabulous Oakville Conference and Banquet Centre the awards got underway with a welcome from Mayor Rob Burton. MC for the night was the Weather Network’s Chris Mei who did a really outstanding job of keeping the event moving while taking sufficient time to honour those selected to receive this community tribute.

The UW of Oakville training and consulting volunteers lost out to the very deserving Young Achievers of Halton group who were obviously thrilled to be choosen.

The UW volunteers provide relevant, top-notch workshops to many of Oakville’s non-profit staff and volunteers. For example, later this fall I’m going to conduct a workshop on how to use social media to raise money and find new volunteers for non-profit and charitable agencies.

To see all the photos go to my SmugMug photo page at www.peterwestphoto.ca and have a look at the United Way of Oakville gallery.

Shooting video with a still camera

Some of the new high-end DSLR cameras are capable of producing outstanding HD video. Here’s a link that you might find interesting: http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2426&productID=249&articleTypeID=225

3:44 of joy

I have the cure for almost whatever is ailing you today. It’s this guy who decides he wants to dance. It doesn’t matter to him if others don’t join in. It doesn’t matter that he dances alone. It only matters that he hears the beat of distant drummer and follows his heart. Turn up the volume.

Be uplifted: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/06/someones-got-to-be-first.html