Dickson's Inlet Sunset

Lifesavers training on surf skis, as the sun sets and the tides turns

dreamtime sunset

dreamtime sunset, originally uploaded by imageo.

This an autostich that went horribly wrong , and yet it is a strangely compelling image.

Autumn afternoon

This is a 21 image autostiched panoramic photomosaic

the swell

Kodak - Winds of Change

This is a "lost" kodak commercial, it was never released publically but supposedly was made for in-house display, (for your eyes only stuff), but somehow it has made is way onto YouTube. To quote the blurb

It demonstrates that Kodak not only understands it's changing business but also has a sense of humor.

PhotoFriday :: Smoke

Drilling in a hydrothermal field at night, for photofriday Topic smoke

What I saw at the PMA expo

1) Without doubt the best thing at the PMA Image technology expo was the "Talking Shop" Talk by Ken Duncan. Not sure that the apple Aperture team would be so happy he barely mentioned their product or even apple. Still he was full of enthusiasm and wonderful insights into his passions, including why you should get up early and not stay in bed.

For me three other things stood out in the show
2) The Photobook has come of age, not just those very expensive things that are becoming the staple of wedding photography, now the quality is being passed down to a broader market. Anyone with some great photo can now consider producing there own personal books for around $100 each. Most services let you upload via the net, but frequently required adhering to their photoshop or PDF templates. I was most impressed with the momento, which is Australian based, and have already downloaded their free software (not a yet another photoshop template by the way) and it has a wonderful feature called ACE layout (which stand for Aesthetic Composition Engine) which helps you create pleasing layouts, even automates the process.

3) LCD photoframes, where you load up your photos into a smallish TV screen that looks like a normal framed photo. The Melbourne Flickr group had an impressive 1200 photos on display, including this one of mine, cycling across twelve screens. It drew quiet a crowd.

4) Specialist Inkjet papers, from glow in the dark to canvas and many quality variations of laser and inkjet paper stock, from the big traditional photofilm and printer firms. Expensive but now suitable for home use. So now you can expect to double the price actually paid for that new inkjet printer on consumables in the first cycle of ink (OK this may be a slight exaggeration but not too much of one). Yet no one from the main players could help me much with the issue of prints fading.

24 hours at flickr

Yes its today. Unfortunately I wont be participating, but there is nothing to stop you. Go out and take lots of photos today. Then join and upload your best or even a few to the 24hour flickr group

Avoiding the $20 fee for PMA Imaging Tecnology Expo

If your are a Melbourne based photographer (so hopefully a member if the Australian Photographers group, if you are not join now!) you may be interested in the PMA Imaging Technology Expo (4th. to 6th May) and more importantly how to avoid the $20 entry fee.

Well you can pre-register here. You must have a valid email address, so that's the down side, the get your email address to send stuff too. So check the fine print at the bottom and deselect that the exhibitors can bulk email you.

Would you like us to release your email address to all exhibitors after the expo - for their use only - so that you can be kept up to date with the latest developments?
Yes No*

and finally note

Please note that by handing over your visitor badge to an exhibitor at the expo for further details means that you are consenting to receiving information from that exhibitor only.

Having said all that I've preregistered.

There are further detail in liftouts in both The Age and Herald Sun Today(Thursday). Also I'm told its being advertised on TV as well, so expect a crowd.

The road to Evergreen farm

For PhotoFriday topic the country

The graduate

 
Somethimes a candid photos can say so much more than the formal pose.

PhotoFriday :: The blues

The superb fairy wren(Malurus cyaneus), is better know to most Australian as the blue wren.

For photofriday topic the blues

Low Tide

Yet another mutli-image panoramic

red sky at night

April Fool's Day bonus (scout poster)

April Fool's Day bonus (scout poster), originally uploaded by imageo.

If you have always wanted one of those really cool scout posters of you flickr photostream. Fd's flickr toys have an april fools day bonus, you can get a set with "all" your photostream organized by interestingness, but I think it is just for one day! So hurry.

Thanks fd.

Normally the scout only shows you photos that habe made it into flickr explore's top 500 photo list

PhotoFriday: Growth

Some recent growth in my cretaceous garden

For PhotoFriday topic: growth

Geotagging: google maps on your phone

If you have a newish mobile phone, with net access and the ability to run java applications you can get google maps on your phone. Being google maps (as opposed to flickr's yahoo maps) local detail and the related satellite imagery for Australia is pretty good. In the town you can get down to street level, no worries. It is basically designed to help you find things (like business) However it is off the beaten track that geotagging photographers will find the google maps satellite images impressive, not quiet as good as a GPS but with a little practise I'm sure most of use will be able to get our photographic locations within at least a few 100 meters AND it is easy to save these locations as placemarkers in favourites (pressing the * key will redisplay them) BUT I haven't figured out how to merge the location details into my cameras EXIF data, well yet!

If you are interested, enter the following URL into your phone's browser -
www.google.com/gmm
It will initially download the 129kb of software then guide you into the maps.


See where this picture was taken. [?]

Small Warning: Zooming and panning satellite photos can involves serious amounts of data downloading, so check your phone contract before you start and get too enthusiastic, to make sure it is not too expensive!

PS: Seems I have not checked yahoo maps, via flickr, recently enough; the resolution in melbourne was improved a dramatically (it needed too)

red sky in the morning

 

it has been so long since decent rains down here in south eastern asutralia, is the the "shepards warning" we are all waiting for?

multi-exposure photomosaics

These two images are multi-exposure photomosaics, using the picasa collage tool

Cropping

One of the very best "enhancement" technique for a new digital photopgrapher(and experienced ones, and film photographer as well) is the simple method of trimming out unnecessary parts of the image, a technique know as cropping.



How you do it is very simple you just selecet a smaller area of the photo, normally using the mouse to drag out or reposition a selection rectangle. The cropping tools in software varies a lot, and here I am using picasa. Even photo kiosk at the photo processor will offer cropping and it can both make an artstic difference (by improving composition) and avoid chopping off peoples heads (when those machines "crop to fit" the usually centralize the portion to display). Some cameras even have a cropping feature. If you have tried you systems cropping tool yet, do an experiment get two of three ok photos and cropp them, print them out and show them around. See how many peope realise they are even the same photo.

Finally a work of warning, remember the size pou want to print, and crop to this size. Good software these days will autoresize your selection box to match that aspect ratio. If there are strong artistic/composition reasons, to go to other sizes remember you will probably have to it print larger and use the scissors on the print