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Photography Unfiltered Update
Photography Unfiltered Update
Quick Tip: Paint the Full Picture!
Tips + Tricks 
2
Wed 09.05.2012
This was shot at F/20 @ 1/50 sec using Canon 5D at 33 mm.
Quick Tip: Paint the full picture! When taking portraits don’t forget to include their native environment. Incorporating your subject’s surroundings creates a story to accompany your subject.
Quick Tip: Location, Location, Location
Tips + Tricks 2
Tue 09.04.2012
This was shot at F/3.2 @ 1/160 sec. using Canon 5D MII at 85 mm.
Quick Tip: Locations often play a paramount role in the impact of an image. Search for backgrounds that complement the clothing and personalities of the couple. Don’t stick a conservative couple against a graffiti wall just to get your shot – it won’t resonate with them and you won’t create the best image of your clients.
Where is your favorite location to photograph a couple?
Quick Tip: Why I Often Prefer “Real” People
Tips + Tricks 3
Thu 08.30.2012
This was shot at F/8 @ 1/250 sec. using Canon 5D at 85 mm.
Quick Tip: Despite popular opinion, it is not always essential to shoot professional models. For many of my lifestyle shoots, I actually prefer to photograph real people. For example, in this shot for John Deere, I found that real people created a more authentic story/feeling.
What are you thoughts – do you prefer shooting real people or paid pros?
I am the first to admit that I am lazy when it comes to consuming news. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a newspaper and often feel bombarded by RSS feed notifications, newsletter wrap-ups (delete!), and the overwhelming amount of content provided by a single google search. When co-founder Brad Cross’s wife Petra informed me of the revolutionary new way Prismatic delivers content she told me “say goodbye to your free time”. I was skeptical. Like I said, I gave up on reading much news a long time ago. Life as a pro-photographer is freaking busy. Despite my reservations, I decided I better give Prismatic a try. The result? Within one week of the iphone release it is one of the top 3 apps running on my phone. It has officially made the coveted main menu bar spot – it’s that good.
So how does it work and why is it great?
Sleek, innovative and universally easy-to-use, Prismatic is changing the way we consume and share news. This smart software filters through your networks to deliver personalized news while introducing you to a whole new realm of social news sharing. The Prismatic website packs all the news we want to read into an easy to navigate user interface.
- Customized news delivery: No longer are we bogged down with a multitude of social networks loaded with an excess of unrelated content. Prismatic connects to your Twitter, Facebook or Google reader account to find out what content actually interest you. Once logged in, Prismatic screens all links shared within your social networks, and then sorts through people you follow to create customized news feeds.
- Interest Bubble: Prismatic reins in all of your top interest and add them to your profile interest bubble cloud. The interest bubble is located on user profiles and act as a symbol of what content your actually into.
- Creditable Content: Semantic-filtering algorithms search through thousands of articles to filter out the junk and deliver only high quality content from creditable sources.
- Consistently Relevant Information: In addition to analyzing your social media behavior, simply liking and disliking content will allow the software to better tailor your news feed to reflect your interest.
- Social Sharing: Prismatic is making news consumption social in a way that has never been done before. Connect and share content with friends and followers directly through the sites navigation buttons. Here you can tweet, tag and email articles all without ever leaving the user dashboard.
- Interactive Tags: A series of tags are created to go along with each article. Tags allow for social news discovery, by introducing you to topics that you may have never normally searched for.
- Expand your Interests: One of my favorite features on Prismatic, is how the program offers different reading suggestions. The software creates a list of articles outside of your personal tags to introduce you to new content and news stories.
- The App: As an added bonus Prismatic just created a sick new iPhone app! The touchscreen interface provides easy navigation, allowing you to toggle between personalized news, full stories, interest categories and more.
You can check out and sign up for Prismatic here! And if you are curious….here is a peek at my bubbles :)
Check out my bubbles!!
Being completely selfless and giving for the sake of just giving has not always come naturally for me. When I was younger I even went so far as leaving the price tag on a presents “on accident” just so the recipient knew how much I spent. Am I proud of this? Absolutely not. I was young and dumb and did not realize that truly giving has nothing to do with the giver. In fact, life’s greatest gifts are given with no expectation for return – including recognition.
The gift of a photograph is one that many often take for granted. Some people haven’t had their picture taken in over a decade; some never have had the opportunity. Everyone has a story to tell, a journey to document. A single photograph can allow a person to feel a sense of hope, joy, and importance.
You have the opportunity to use your passion to make a difference in someone else’s life. To transform the way a person sees him or herself, in a way that is truly empowering. Please see details on Help Portrait below:
We are reaching out to our amazing community of followers to get involved! Help-Portrait needs your support to make their passion of helping others truly get the attention it deserves. For those of you unfamiliar with the organization; Help-Portrait is a non-profit group who gives away portraits to less fortunate people around the world. After nearly three years, 25,000 photographers, 56 countries, 700 events, and giving away nearly 170,000 portraits their team is rallying together to spread awareness to their awe-inspiring cause!
Although the reach of Help-Portrait has been undeniably amazing, there are still so many portraits to be fulfilled. The time is now to have our community help make Help-Portrait a household name. The only way Help-Portrait can do this is with your assistance! Currently, there are more than 25,500 people within the Help-Portrait community. {If each of you donated $5US, we could raise enough funds to hire a small team of people while covering some desperately needed developmental costs for our community and donation management systems. }
Check out more on Help-Portrait cause: http://hp.cta.gs/helphp
To Donate: http://hp.cta.gs/donate
