Tag Archives: Photography

Night at the Chinese Opera pictures on display

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The lead actress smiles for the camera in her full regalia.

This is just a quick post about my show for this month’s Art Walk in downtown Riverside.

If you’re in the downtown Riverside area, stop in during Art Walk and see my prints on the green wall when you enter Back to the Grind coffeehouse.

I previously wrote about how I visited Hong Kong to capture these opera images.

But I finally made some prints from them. Please come by and “sign” my guest book

Rather come by and post some comments here– the official website for my show.

I’ll have my laptop with me tomorrow evening.

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If you’re interested in buying prints, visit my online store.

What’s in the Edges of Your Pictures?

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Jude Dettman from upstate New York is a recent switcher to Macs. She did so apparently after my advice? Brave soul.

For starters, no, I do not own Apple shares. Wish I had some.

I happen to think if you don’t have a boatload of applications for photography and other graphics programs for the Windows platform, you ought to seriously consider switching.

It’s like getting 2 computers for the price of one. A word of caution here though. Some of your peripherals may have driver issues. But there shouldn’t be anything major except..

When you hit the “Eject” button to open the DVD drive, (your cup holder) it might close spilling your cup of coffee.

Anyway, Jude was kind enough to share some of her pictures from Flickr with me. Continue reading What’s in the Edges of Your Pictures?

Using On-camera Flash

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Fill-flash to the rescue–Taken in San Bernardino during a citywide tribute for  Winter Olympian Derek Parra, this picture would have been a disaster given the high noon lighting, baseball cap on my subject’s face. My flash was not on-camera. I held my flash on its extension sync cord with my left hand and aimed downwards. Had it been on-camera, the foreground subjects would have been over-exposed. Compare this against the vertical picture after the jump.

In my earlier post “More Beginning Photographer Mistakes” I mentioned how not having an understanding of flash can be a source of problems. (See #15 in that post)

Camera manufacturers for prosumer models often include a built-in flash for convenience.

The high end professional models don’t feature such built-in/pop-up flashes because Continue reading Using On-camera Flash

Photography Contests & the Uninformed

There is a disturbing trend I’m spotting as more and more hobbyists turn to their new found passion/talents for digital photography.

Corporations like camera manufacturers, airlines and other high profile companies offer a meager prize and then in bury in the fine print or legalese somewhere that by entering this contest you hereby agree:

  1. to grant the contest organizers all rights to reproduce the pictures
  2. that the organizers may use your picture with no guarantees of a byline

As a photography instructor, I came across one such contest recently–College Seen. I understand with the budget cuts and so on, that most community colleges and universities have done away with staff photographers yet have a need for pictures.

That need will never go away, but the powers-that-be in higher education seem to hire lots of writers year after year without much thought for photographers. So how can I in good conscience encourage my students to participate in such trickery? Here’s the fine print in one such contest found in #6 Conditions of Participation:

By entering this competition, you agree that the Foundation retains the right to unlimited use of the submitted photographs for Foundation publicity, promotion, and advertising purposes, without compensation. Name recognition will be given to the photographer when possible, but is not guaranteed. As a condition of participation, you waive any claim of infringement against the Foundation based upon use of the submitted photograph, and agree to hold the Foundation harmless from any claims or expenses arising as a result of any allegation that you did not own or were not authorized to allow publication and reproduction of the photograph.

Most of the conditions, I can understand. Students and beginners need something to shoot for and a carrot on a stick to motivate them. I’m not even suggesting that the prize is not worth the effort.

But the line where it says  there is no guarantee of a byline or name recognition is downright offensive coming from an educational body which is supposed to be a role model.

Using someone’s work without attribution in writing circles is plagiarism. What is it when it’s a picture?