Why I love the pool at Indian Springs

f/2.8, 1/30s, ISO 400, 40mm
Indian Springs Resort (highly recommended)
Calistoga, CA

Love in the dug-out

f/2.8, 1/640s, ISO 100, 17mm
Calistoga, CA

Only in California

...in a Whole Foods parking lot no less.


f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 1600, 23mm

Picasa Web and the iPhone

For those who use Picasa Web for photo sharing and also own iPhones, there is good news from the official Google Photos blog:

Today, we're happy to tell you about an extra bonus for iPhone users who visit the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums. You'll see that we've completely redesigned and optimized the interface specifically for iPhones. Pictures are proportioned to fit the iPhone's screen dimensions, and we've tweaked the key buttons so they're easier to navigate with your fingertips. Best of all, we've launched a new iPhone-only slideshow feature that automatically flips through your favorite photo albums.

Link: http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2007/12/picasa-web-albums-on-iphone.html

Photography contests

For all you competitive types, photocompete.com looks like a very useful site. It's basically a running log of all active photography competitions around the world. They give you a brief description of the contest, what the eligibility requirements are, if there are any entree fees, and the entry deadline. It says that today there are 57 currently active contests!

Link: http://www.photocompete.com/

shootshop: the aftermath!

I spent a day with 15 other photographers at a "shootshop" led by Nate & Jaclyn from the image is found photography. It was awesome -- truly inspiring and enlightening. I felt like a giant sponge trying to soak up as much information as possible. I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking shop with all the other attendees, and realized just how much fun it can be when a bunch of like-minded people with one huge interest (obsession?) in common get together and have a photography geek-fest.

The day began with everyone sharing a bit about themselves, and Nate & Jaclyn talking a bit about how they got started in photography and and their general philosophy on the kind of photography they like to do. They generally eschew the most overdone and cliched shots when it comes to wedding/engagement sessions -- you won't see a single photo in their collection of a couple walking hand in hand on the beach during sunset. Their style is more urban and gritty, as you'll see in the photos later on in the post. They make it pretty clear to their clients that if they want the more conventional and stereotypical shots, then they should look elsewhere for someone who can give that to them. I deeply respect their strong commitment to their own personal style of photography.

After the get-to-know-you part of the day, they arranged for a couple of clients of theirs to come by for an instructional engagement session shoot. So we all followed along as we walked the streets of downtown Oceanside and watched and waited for Nate to get inspired by something in his surroundings. We'd stop, Nate would direct the photo subjects to get into position, and he would talk through every detail of his thought process with the rest of us. Really great stuff.

The day came to a close with all of us returning to their studio and having a post-processing session where Nate guided us through their overall workflow. This is where we all got a glimpse of what they do to their photos to give them the unique look & feel that you see in their finished product.

I took some photos of Nate at work in each different photo-setting, for the purpose of showing them side by side with the finished results of the photos he captured after reviewing and post-processing.

I need to be clear here: The finished photos you see below were taken by Nate from imageisfound photography -- not me! I'm just linking directly to the photos as they were posted on his blog. Please go straight to their post to see their own write-up.

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Here are a few random photos of the class:

Woody Harrelson at Google

Last week I had the opportunity to photograph an event at the Google campus -- Woody Harrelson paid us a visit to speak about environmental issues, and the ways in which regular people can get involved and make a difference. He was very laid back and down to earth, and seemed happy to be chatting and mingling with all of the Google folks. He was also very gracious with my incessant photo-taking, something I imagine he's pretty used to.

It was a goal of mine to avoid the use of flash as much as possible. I generally prefer shooting with whatever light is available than to use on-camera flash, and it can get tricky at times to strike the right balance of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to get crisp, non-blurry images.

Here are a few photos I like from the event.

Woody Harrelson and Rebecca Moore (Manager, Google Earth Outreach)
Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 31mm, 900 ISO

Joe Hickey (Managing Editor, Voiceyourself.com), Woody Harrelson, Rebecca Moore
Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 24mm, 400 ISO

With mic: Rebecca Moore, Woody Harrelson
Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 45mm, 1100 ISO

Woody Harrelson and Sean Askay (Engineer, Google Earth)
Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 50mm, 1600 ISO

Woody was given a gift bag at the end of the evening, and was very excited about the Google branded hat he found inside it.

Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 40mm, 1100 ISO

Image info: f/2.8, 1/60 sec, 35mm, 1400 ISO

What I'm doing this week

A while back I wrote about wedding photographers, and mentioned a couple people in San Diego whose work and style I'm a big fan of. I also spoke about wanting to go to one of their full-day photography workshops (called "shootshops") that they offer, but at the time I had just missed the local one they offered in San Francisco. Well, the day has come, and I've decided to fly out to San Diego to attend their current shootshop on December 5. I'm ridiculously excited to be here, even as I type this in my room at the Motel 6 in Oceanside. I'll do a follow-up post in the coming days to share my experiences and hopefully some of the images that are created during the shootshop.