"Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form." --Stephen Nachmanovitch
The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free open source photo retouching and image authoring program. While some of its fans claim it's just as good as Adobe...
"The site is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer at 1024x 768."--a.k.a. the writing on the wall
So began an e-mail from a photographer who wants his work featured in this department. Guess what happens when you use another browser, such as Opera, to look at his site? Nada, nothing, zilch, zero. You get a white screen. I don't know about...
The Original Lensbaby is a flexible camera lens that creates an image that has an area of sharp--or not--focus that's surrounded by a graduated blur. This mostly plastic lens is available in different camera mounts and brings the "Holga look" (see What's a Holga Anyway? sidebar) to single...
One of the few problems with digital image capture is you tend to shoot more photographs than if you had to pay for processing them. (You really have to pay for all these extra images--there is no free digital lunch--but that's a topic for another story.) If you're gonna shoot lots of pictures...
"A dream is where a boy can swim in the deepest oceans and fly over the highest clouds."--J.K. Rowling
This month's department helps you soar with the eagles, land with the owls, and introduces you to some down-to-earth photographers who look at the world in completely new ways. In accomplishing these goals, this month's photographers will...
The biggest challenge when photographing cars at auto shows--indoors or out--is dealing with cluttered backgrounds. In the past I've used low angles, high angles and postproduction techniques to blur the setting and add some zoom-zoom. That approach shifted my focus from the subject to its surroundings...
"Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence."--William Blake, 1790
At the unveiling of a $40,000 mural at Livermore, California's new public library, people were surprised when the artist misspelled the names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Van...
Riddle me this: What's the hardest thing to find on any location shoot? If you said, "clients who were on time," that would be partially true, but the correct answer is--an AC power outlet. They're even more difficult to find if you're at the beach, in a park, or as I often find myself, on a racetrack somewhere. One of the niftiest solutions...