A black and white version of Mt Sanford and reflection, from one of my favorite viewpoints in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

The secret to a productive day of creative work on the computer, for me, is Command Q. Tweet Deck, closed. Mac Mail, closed. Fetch, closed. Safari, Firefox and Chrome, closed. Dreamweaver, closed. Capture NX2, closed, Photoshop closed, Text Edit, closed. iTunes, open, and Photo Mechanic, open. 35 minutes of initial photo sorting/editing and keywording and I get an awful lot done.

Then, Command O and Capture NX2 opens up. Select the images from Photo Mechanic, and hit Command E. Those images open in Capture NX2. Command Q again, and Photo Mechanic shuts down. I do my basic RAW editing, conversions, etc, and open the images in Adobe Photoshop. Command Q and Capture NX2 shuts down as well.

A little more work in Photoshop, then save the tif files, send the various resized jpegs to their respective folders for internet uploading, blogs, etc, and Command Q slams it’s iron fist down once more.

Next up, I might write for my blog, or something in my journal, or work on a few other things I’m writing, articles etc. I usually use Text Edit for that. Then, as I wind those down, boom, Command Q relentlessly fires again.

Dreamweaver for some website work; either writing new pages, or tweaking content in current pages, there’s always something there that needs attention. And thanks to the voracious appetite of Command Q, I can give those pages my full attention. My email box doesn’t Bing, I don’t see the little red square of death at the top of my Google plus page, Tweet Deck doesn’t force its popups over the top of everything I’m doing, and I can actually focus on the work I’m doing; which, of course, thanks to this wonderful world of digitization, is never  close to completed.

Multi-tasking simply isn’t a productive process for creative work without a real schedule and set of boundaries. Distraction and interruption means losing focus, and that’s not a useful way to channel creative work.

And for now, that means Command Q and a cup of tea upstairs.

Cheers

Carl

Coyote pup sitting beside yellow daisies, Jasper National Park, Canada. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

BBC = bBS

Hey Folks,

Here’s an interesting article from the UK Telegraph; the first paragraph pretty much sums things up: “The BBC is accused of routinely faking footage in wildlife documentaries, by using studio sets, sound effects and tame animals to portray creatures in the wild.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: yes, indeed, the UK Telegraph commenting on any media source of ‘faking’ anything is pretty sad. Let’s disregard tabloid integrity for a moment and consider what this is really about (and what’s WAY more fun); wildlife photography.

Wildlife photography does not include zoo and game farm animals; shooting captive subjects, given that some folks are perpetually going to choose to do this, should always be labelled as such, even if only via context (see Darwin Wiggett’s bear photo for an example; and notice that he captioned it regardless).

I have yet to hear anyone explain how photographing a bear in a cage is wildlife anything. The root of the word ‘wild’ is free-willed, not Free Willy. I understand, for certain, there are degrees of what that might mean. Is a zebra migrating hundreds of miles across the plains in Africa before being hemmed in by a fence really free willed? *

The fact that there are indeed myriad shades of gray, woven through every possible facet of our world, does not make charcoal black any less black. We might differ on where 18% gray is, but we know what black is.

A bear in a cage is a bear in a cage, and not wildlife. Steel bars and free will aren’t friends.

Wildlife photography must be about wild, as people photography must be about people. Photographing captive animals is no more wildlife photography than photographing my pickup truck parked in front of the house might make me a Nascar photographer; a photo of me in my stylishly stunning goretex jacket is not fashion photography.

So what is “wildlife”? In thinking of how critically different a captive animal is to a wild one, I’m reminded of a powerful passage by Derrick Jensen in his great book, Thought to Exist in the Wild, Awakening to the Nightmare of Zoos: “A sea lion is her habitat. She is the school of fish she chases. She is the water. She is the cold wind blowing over the ocean. She is the waves that strike the rocks on which she sleeps and she is the rocks. She is the constant calling back and forth between members of her family, this talking to each other that never seems to stop. She is the shark who eventually ends her life. She is all these things. She is that web. She is the process of being a sea lion, in place. She is her desires, which we can only learn by letting her show us, if she wants; not by encaging her.”

That’s what wild is. A bear in a cage relentlessly pacing back and forth thru its own shit is not.

The power of photography is in its capture. What makes a photo so appealing to a viewer is the moment. Reality portrayed on a 2 dimensional plane. If we look through great moments in all forms of photography and ask the question of what is it that evokes a reaction in a viewer, it’s clearly a response to some perceived sense of reality, to some actual experience; even if that sense is simply someone else’s “take” on reality. We understand that moment. We feel it. We relate to it.

I think it’s important that we don’t deny that power, that integral function of a photograph. Photography might, translated literally, mean ‘painting with light’, but that’s a superfluous definition. Photography is most definitely NOT painting. Photography is photography.

When we present that photography as something other than what it actually is we’re not documentarians. It’s a copout to hide beneath the veneer of “artists” as well; the only use of the term “artist” that might be appropriate for those photographers who don’t disclose captive subjects is “con-artist”.

Speaking of such, even the National Advertising Division recently made a similar statement when they banned an ad by Proctor & Gamble for too much digital manipulation. The NAD took things a step further, however, and pointed out that even a footnote isn’t enough; that is, full disclosure should be FULL disclosure: “You can’t use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then – in the mice type – have a disclosure that says ‘okay, not really.’

Some folks claim that labeling their photographs reduces nature photography to a form devoid of ulterior meaning, but I disagree. We humans label things. We label animals, features, subjects, moments, days, places, etc. We label each other. We label ourselves. And yes, we label our art. We label sculptures as ‘sculptures’, paintings as ‘paintings’, poetry as ‘poetry’, and so on. We even subdivide each form into further categories, and label pieces and subdivisions accordingly. Photography becomes ‘journalistic photography’, or ‘still life photography’ and ‘nature photography’. This is what we do. Its how we know the world.

IMO, the power of nature photography is its expression of the natural world. Portrayals of captive animals as wild animals loses much of the power that comes through our relationships and experiences with nature. I see no harm in expecting artists and documentarians alike to pronounce their work for what it is. The phrase ‘nature photograph’ carries with it certain intimations. A trip to the zoo is NOT one of those.

Cheers

Carl

* PS: the answer to the question about the zebra is (a), yes.

Brown bear, Ursus arctos, standing raised upright and rubbing her back against a birch tree in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

I can’t imagine my father ever calling himself a “professional University lecturer” or my brother referring himself to as a “professional math teacher”.

The word professional means many things; but when it’s followed with a vocation, such as “photographer”, it doesn’t mean that you enjoy photography a lot, or that you speak politely about it, or that someone bought a print from you. It doesn’t even mean that you have a website. It doesn’t mean you teach workshops and lead tours, either.

Show me a professional photographer, and I’ll wager a dollar I’ll show you someone who’s struggled to pay their rent, who’s sold gear to make their car payment (or sold their car to make their gear payment), someone who’s eaten peanut butter sandwiches because that’s what was available to eat.

A professional photographer has made real sacrifice to do what they do (there are always exceptional cases, with trust funds, a wealthy spouse, etc). It’s a risk. It’s giving up an awful lot to choose to pursue a particular vocation. It’s losing on that risk, picking up, and swinging the stick again. And again. And yet again. Repeat, infinitum.

It sounds much more glamorous than it might be. It means you take the bus sometimes, it means you sit in the rain and wish you were somewhere else. It means you sometimes take a lower price for a sale because you need shoes. Pardon my French, but it means you’ve been sh** on. It means you’ve wished, cursed and swore that you had chosen some other manner to live by. It means you say ‘yes’ when you think ‘oh sh**, that gig sounds like hell’. It means you say ‘yes’ and then that gig actually IS hell. And you then say ‘yes’ again. Still you pursue it.

Being a professional photographer (or musician, or actor, or writer) doesn’t just mean you’re good at what you do, or that you’re very passionate about photography. It doesn’t just mean you spend time promoting yourself. It doesn’t just mean you write invoices and receipts. It doesn’t simply mean you work hard to ‘get the shot’ (it doesn’t mean you use such ridiculously lame phrases as ‘get the shot’, either). It certainly doesn’t mean you have a facebook/twitter/google+ page.

It means you took a step. And another. And another. You consciously chose a path less traveled. You stepped into an unknown world and wondered ‘how should I live?’ It likely means you’ve also wondered ‘will I make it?” That’s an incredible dilemma to have; and for many people, continue to have. It’s a very different place to be in.

Being a professional photographer means you’re probably not striving to become something else (though some certainly do); you’re not doing it to make some bank while you try to get your law business off the ground.

The term “professional photographer” means so much more than how you see yourself, your own sense of identity, though that’s certainly a part of it. You ARE a photographer. It’s not a simple advertising slogan. It’s not just a banner for your website. It’s real, folks, and it does mean something. And to every professional photographer out there, hats off to you.

Cheers

Carl

Borwn bear in the forest, fall colors, searching for salmon in a river. Brown bear (Ursus arctos) Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks

A few quick updates: though nothing is ‘final’ on the interwebs, it seems; the internet goes to infinity, I suppose.

The end of every summer/fall I’m busy with office work, paper work, reports, emails, photo editing, processing, prints, website updates, website tweaks, writing, photo submissions (Oh, how I detest that word “submissions”; yet it’s so wonderfully apt, isn’t it?) and heaven knows what else. It’s not so much fun, but (apparently) it has to be done.

Lately, here’s a few of the projects I’ve been dealing with and fires I’ve put out.  Many more to come.

• New album added,  Gates of the Arctic photos
• New images added to the Wrangell – St. Elias Coastal Range album
• New images added to the Aurora Borealis album
• New images added, and some updated design, on my Alaska Photos portfolio page
• Finally added selections to a Mt McKinley photos page
• A Google Plus page added for Alaskan Alpine Treks, my guiding and photo tour business (come on folks, go ahead and add that page to your best G+ circles; thank you)

Another change I’ve made with the site, but less visible to everyone here, is I changed my email server from my web host’s server to gmail. Highly recommended move, and not to difficult at all. Gmail has a way better spam filter, and much more adept tools with their auto responder, etc, than lunarpages email server does.

I can still set up my Mac Mail program to retrieve and send emails, so it’s all handled and managed locally for me, but it comes thru gmail, rather than my webhost. Anyone having issues with spam, for example, thru their website’s email, I’d definitely recommend making this move.

One more change; I’ve disparaged coppermine gallery in the past, because they can be pretty hard to deal with. That’s putting it mildly; pita is more appropriate. I know, I know, it’s free software. But there’s no excuse to be so disrespectful toward people when they ask a question. But, the last few dealings I’ve had on their forum asking for some help they’ve been much better, and I actually was able to implement at least some of the changes I wanted to get done. So kudos to the folks at coppermine for being a little more user-friendly.

I also just had an article published, an op-ed piece on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain. The piece is driven by the recent debacle in Congress when AK rep Don Young tells an invited guest (essentially) to shut up. It’s a little outta control. The article is on Alaska Dispatch.

I won’t mention the new Alaska Photo Tours page I put up, but I will mention a lengthy article I wrote recently on “How to Photograph the Aurora borealis“; a 3 part comprehensive guide to shooting the northern lights. I think it covers most of what you might want to know about photographing the aurora.

Speaking of which, I’m about to go give it a whirl; enough of this writing already.
Heading out the door, folks.

Cya

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

What’s your page rank? How many friends do you have? Retweets? Have you shared anything today? What’s your title tag? Incoming links? How’s your website rank?

Now that summer is over, and it’s officially “office season”, you’re probably spending your time doing much of what I’ve been doing lately; website work, photo editing, marketing and promotion via the sticky, tricky and infinite webs we call SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & Social Media (making me wonder what, exactly, Anti-social Media might be).

SEO is a pretty tricky beast. It’s a lot of research, reading, re-reading, web-coding, overhauling, reviewing, more research, re-coding and hair pulling. It’s mostly a lot of trial and error; it’s not a given, for example, that what works for one site is applicable and relevant for another. And it’s almost certain that what works on the article you just carefully absorbed will not work on your website. So, it’s mostly guesswork.

Sometimes the results are what we hoped for, and we pat ourselves on the back, and think how clever we are. Sometimes, despite all out best efforts, the old googles kick our superbly optimized page to the bottom of page 11 on their results; this really hurts when you see some trashy, 1993-styled geocities looking webpage showing up on the first page of rankings.

So, we turn to Social Media; If you can’t get to page 1 on google search results, maybe you’ll just bypass all that and get a gazillion Plus Ones on your site; that’s gunna count for something. So we schmooze and kiss a$$ and sell what’s left of our souls on Google Plus and facebook, telling everyone how much we love what they do and how wonderful the “community” is. And we finally get another person add us to their Google Circle.

Life’s great.

So, after, days of coding, and looking at restyling .css sheets to float content pages right and sidebars left and javascripts to the footer and h1 tags and link title tags and img alt tags and so forth, I thought I’d put this article together to really help you with your photography efforts.

The single best SEO advice, and best Social Networking effort you, as a photographer, can invest in is to go outside and take photos. Repeat.

Cheers

Carl

Northern lights, Chugach Mountains, Glenn Highway, Alaska.

A bull moose standing on the fall tundra in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Vegetation includes Dwarf Birch and Alaska Willow. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks

Recently I saw a tweet the other day from photographer Richard Bernabe: “Just had a photo editor demand raw files to process as they see fit. I turned the deal down.”

I saw and enjoyed at least some of the following conversation. We discussed the merit of sending out a RAW file to a photo editor instead of some other file format, such as a tiff or a jpeg.

For myself, I can’t see any reason to not send a RAW file if an editor or graphic artist requests it, unless there was some very highly unusual and extenuating circumstance; the only one that springs to mind is if the final image was a manual blend of multiple exposures, and/or a panoramic stitch that I’d put together. Even in those circumstances, I suspect I’d most likely explain to the person I was dealing with about the amount of time involved in finishing the product from camera to computer screen, and suggest they simply use the finished 8-bit tif or jpeg file, but if they felt they really wanted the RAW files, I can’t see why not; it’d mean they have to do (in some cases) a whole lot of work I’d already done, but if that’s what they wanted, I can’t see a good reason to refuse.

If someone paid me to mow their lawn, then said they were going to mow it again, I’d have no issue with that. And while it’s true something like mowing a lawn isn’t a valid comparison to the artful process, the exact same kind of thing happens in art all the time.

Some of the world’s greatest musicians get called in (and highly paid) to record a track for an album. Let’s say a drummer named Steve Gap is hired to play drums for a studio album. Steve comes in, plays the track and then finds out the producer is going to hire another drummer to redo the hihat track? Happens all the time. Or the producer is going to use Pro Tools (a musician’s version of photoshop) and completely alter the snare track. Or the kick drum? Happens all the time.

Let’s say a photo editor calls and wants the moose photo above (happened the same week I saw the above tweet). I’m not going to have an issue if they choose to crop both sides in to the moose’s body, though that would drastically alter the mood of the image. That also happens all the time. or they crop it to a vertical composition. Or they pump up the saturation somewhat? Happens all the time. In fact, if the editor is going to do all this work, I’d probably see MORE sense in giving them the RAW file, as that contains more data to work with, more information for them to adjust and tweak the image for their usage than a tif or jpeg would.

Similarly, the argument of “giving up creative control” is somewhat dishonest. An editor is free to make all kinds of adjustments to any image you send them, and I doubt many photographers in today’s photo stock market are going to demand the printed image be cleared with them before final publication. In other words, whatever creative control you might be giving up with RAW files can be similarly lost with any other format; with the potential of the final image only rendering even worse, because we gave them a limited data set to work with.

A lot of folks call the RAW file the digital negative; and it was perfectly common in the days before digital capture to send out slides, be they originals or copies, for photo editors. That’s HOW we sold our photos. So I simply don’t see how it’s any different now – unless, of course, folks are so intensely photoshopping and adjusting their RAW images that they don’t want editors (or anyone else) to see the original RAW file (and I’m not suggesting this is the case with Rich, above, at all, and don’t mean to imply otherwise).

If it were me as photo editor, I’d need to have some particular reason to request a RAW file, simply because I’d rather let the photographer do the work of the conversion process. But, if for some reason it worked better for me to get a RAW file, I’d do it. I just can’t see a single reason for a photographer to refuse to send out a RAW file for a stock photo sale. If the editor wishes to deal with a RAW file rather than a tif, or jpeg, more power to them, I say.

Cheers

Carl

An early fall snow coats the peaks of Mount Edith Cavell, Edith Cavell Lake, Canadian Rockies, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Looking around the web recently I can’t help but notice the surge in photographers’ promoting eBooks. I wonder if eBooks aren’t the newer version of microstock photography? The hallmark of microstock sales is, IMO, an incredibly low price for (typically) royalty free sales; at best only very loosely managed rights. That seems to be the industry marketing model for eBook sales as well.

I’m not saying this is all a bad thing. One plus I see is that the bulk of eBook sales are direct from the photographer to the customer; cutting out an agency, which I think is (virtually) always a good thing.

Another plus is the quality of the material; the eBooks I’ve seen have been absolutely first class stuff. Microstock photos are often pretty sad images.

I think the above 2 positives are more than likely related.

Just wondering out loud is all.

Cheers

Carl

A coastal brown bear, Ursus arctos, walks along Brooks River shoreline at dawn, backlit, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Next up in this series of news of the month pieces.

This month, I haven’t been spending as much time in the woods, and even less reading the news. Mostly, I’ve been grating sandpaper over my eyeballs … more commonly called “working on website updates”. I need to take about a  year off, and learn how to do this properly, then start over from scratch and rebuild everything (yeah, that’s gunna happen).

Below I’ve compiled various bits from around the web that held my failing attention long enough to actually read through the piece.  Feel free to add your own stuff of note, I’d love to see some things I’ve missed.

In a completely random order:

Photography Stuff

Northern Lights Photos I saw this the other day. A nice compilation of photos and a video of the Aurora, both borealis (northern) and australis (southern). Included are shots of the aurora both from space and IN space. Hubble space telescope photos of the aurora on Saturn. That’s a first, for me at least. And definitely check out this video/time lapse Terje Sorgjerd at the bottom of the post. Very cool.

A new blogger (for me, anyway). I wasn’t familiar with fellow Aussie photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich until I read this recent post on the aspirations of a Travel Photographer. Nice discussion, and his site is worth keeping connected to. Google reader time again.

Extreme Sheep LED Art This is simply way, way, way too cool. I mean, awesomely cool. “We took to the hills of Wales armed to the teeth with sheep, LEDs and a camera, to create a huge amazing LED display. Of sorts”. Do yourself a favor and watch this video. Do yourself 2 favors, and watch it again.

What’s wrong with global Photojournalism? Photographer discusses the state of photojournalism today, as presented in the recent “world’s top press photography contest”. A better discussion might be on the point of such contests.

Quote #1: “What the events reveal is the thinness of the margin on which modernity lives.” Bill McKibben, on the tragedy in Japan.

Capture NX2 tutorial I wrote a post a while back about Nikon Capture NX2, and how much I preferred the results to Photoshop’s ACR. Here’s a quick tutorial from Nikon on making some simple adjustments with the program. Things are never as simple as tutorials suggest, but this is helpful.

Composition I’m always in 2 minds about these kinds of articles. In some ways, they’re useful, but in so many other ways, they just seem to regurgitate old rules that don’t need to be regurgitated. Zappa’s “Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar” comes to mind as a response. Still though, it’s nice to read something like this once in every great while.

Fair Use and Photos A Photo Editor’s take on a recent decision in federal court. The case involved a claim of Fair Use, by Richard Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Lawrence Gagosian and Rizzoli International Publications, after photographer Patrick Cariou filed suit for copyright infringement. Prince “appropriated 28 images from Patrick’s Yes Rasta book for his Canal Zone exhibit at the Gagosian gallery”. Good news? Photographer wins.

Odds and Ends

Branding Do you brand? Do you think it’s important? Do you know what it is and how to do it? Do you want to? “Your brand is a promise to the client”. A few tips here on the subject.

WordPress Plugins WordPress is a great, great blogging platform. Virtually every “blogger” I know uses it. A few plugins here might be helpful to improve your photo blogsite. Which reminds me I need to install the Supercache plugin soon.

Artists and Facebook USA Today has a news article titled “Artists draw on Facebook to connect, or sell their work”. I wonder if next week they’ll have a scoop showing that chocolate tastes great. Seriously though, interesting article, looking at how something like the net is a boon for some artists, and a hassle for others.

AWARD WINNERS 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medals were awarded by President Barack Obama. A list of winners is here. I’m jazzed that Sonny Rollins (pun intended) was awarded a medal, and also James Taylor, Quincy Jones, and Wendell Berry. Congrats to all the winners, what a great achievement and recognition.

Quote #2: “The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.” - Frank Barron.

Waste Land A documentary film following photographer Vic Muniz in Brazil. Muniz set out to change the lives of an impoverished group of  self-assigned pickers of recyclable materials. “Creating portraits of the garbage pickers, selling them as high art, and giving all the money back to the community”.

Mount Blackburn at dawn. Winter photo, from Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

That’s it til next month. Please do add anything you really enjoyed. The only qualifiers are that you must have actually read the article/watched the video/browsed the photo/s, AND thought the link actually worthwhile sharing. Put everything else on Twitter.

Thanks folks.

Cheers

Carl

Backcountry Skiing trip, Kuskulana River, Mt. Blackburn, winter, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks

The next of the monthly series for 2011. The biggest news, of course, in photography this month was the Oscars. I, of course,  missed them. Again. Ahh well – there goes pop culture, I spose.

The next biggest piece of news is that I’ve been spending quite a bit of time out of town, tooling around in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, enjoying the mountains. A few days here, a  few days there; beats the heck out of navigating the treacherous icy roads of Anchorage. And much more interesting than reading the news.

Below is what caught my eye this month. I’ve been in the mtns a bit, so might have missed some good stuff. Feel free to add your own stuff of note.

In no particular order:

Photography Stuff

Flickr Loses 4000 Photos. Popular photo hosting website, Flickr, screwed up and deleted over 4000 photos belonging to longtime account holder Mirco Wilhelm. “Wilhelm had e-mailed Flickr customer service about another user’s account which seemed to be packed with stolen photos — a violation of the site’s policies. In trying to delete that errant account, the Flickr employee accidentally nuked Wilhelm’s.”

Canon 200-400mm lens. One lens all my friends who shoot Canon gear have been lusting over for a long time, finally announced. A 200-400mm F4 lens – “Designed for Canon’s leading range of EOS Digital SLR cameras, the new lens will be an ideal addition for sports and wildlife photographers, offering exceptional flexibility with a built-in 1.4x extender that creates an increased focal range of 280 – 560mm.”. Have at it, folks, I’m sure this will be a popular piece of gear.

Extinct Species Photos. New York Times does a short slide show; “A Gallery of Species Lost and on the Brink”

Amazing Mountain Lions. How many wildlife photographers would love an image of a mountain lion? how about a photo with 8 mountain lions in it. All wild. Check this out.

Quote #1: “In the tension between light and dark is the power of the universes”. Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard.

Most Surprising Photos of 2010. TIME Magazine displays a great Photo Essay, 21 photos from 2010. Some great stuff. #5 will blow your mind. Yikes! #13 is pretty amazing as well.

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem A Photo Essay. – “a generally intact ecosystem; all the wild critters that were here a couple of centuries ago when Lewis and Clark passed through the Northern Rockies – wolves, grizzly bears, bison – are still here.” Dave Showalter has some nice stuff here, on the NRDC’s website. Good work.

American Pastoral. This is a must read. Mark Meyer, Alaska photographer, has an excellent piece here on a recently proposed bill in Florida by Florida Senator Jim Norman (R-Tampa) – the bill “would make it a first degree felony in the Sunshine State to make visual depictions of any property without written permission where agriculture operations are being conducted. Other first degree felonies in Florida are murder, rape, kidnapping, sexual battery, and child molestation. Burglary of an unoccupied structure and third degree grand theft are only third degree felonies.”

Aurora webcam. A webcam showing auroras. Useful tool for folks wanting to go out and maybe see or shoot the lights.

Facebook Changes. Recent (again) changes to Facebook are reviewed here on the Photo Editor website. As with everything to do with “the Face”, seems like every rose has its thorn.

Gave Our Kodachrome Away. Nothing lasts forever, not even those “nice bright colors”. Seems Dec 30 was the end of the line for this photography classic. There’s not a single place left to process Kodachrome film. “On Dec 30, 2010, Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan. will stop processing Kodachrome”. I know, I know, it’s now March. So what?

Artists and Alchemists. Speaking of film, here’s a film about film. Seems a little over the top to me, from the trailer here, but I know some folks will be keen to see this film. “In this digital age, a growing number of artists are reviving 19th century techniques to create modern photographs. Artists & Alchemists is a feature length documentary that follows ten contemporary and renowned photographers employing antiquated photographic processes.”

Photo Tips. Bret Edge puts a nice post on his blog with some helpful reminders to improve our photos. Excellent advice. Nice discussion follows the blog. Sweep the edges of the frame!

Odds and Ends

Customizing Facebook Pages. This guy did it. Nice job, too. Photoshelter blog present Nathan Armes’ work on customizing his facebook page. Will be interesting to see if this catches on. Here’s Nathan’s Facebook page.

Gmail users Some helpful hacks and tips to make gmail even more user-friendly. Gmail is the bomb. With these tips and tricks, gmail rocks even harder. For example, a link to the official gmail keyboard shortcuts page. eg. Click ‘J’ to open or move your cursor to the next oldest conversation.

Quote #2: “In art as in life, form and subject, body and soul, are one.” – Ed Abbey.

Canabis and Psychosis. Scientific America publish an article about an upcoming paper; “This particular study found that marijuana use is associated with early development of psychosis.” Put the pipe down, kids.

Internet Explorer 9.0. Website updates all around, I suppose. What else can this mean? “Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 web browser goes live”? As someone doing my own website work, I shudder everytime I hear anything about Internet Explorer. I hope it dies a slow painful death.

Free Hugs. This is pretty cool; a moving video of people offering “Free hugs” around the world. Seriously folks –  Watch this clip.

A cow moose, Alces alces, stands outside a house, Anchorage, Alaska, winter. I shot this leaning out the window, with a 12-24mm lens. That's up close to a moose.

That’s the news from here til next month. If you have any items you’d like to add below, please do so. The only qualifiers are that you must have actually read the article/watched the video/browsed the photo/s, AND thought the link actually worthwhile sharing. Put everything else on Twitter.

Thanks folks.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks

The first of the monthly series for 2011. In no particular order:

Photography Stuff

A Video by Frans Lanting. A short video presentation on his Life Project, and how the ‘biodiversity project’ for National Geographic led him there. Quite possibly the only photography related “news” you need to give your attention to. Amazing.

Animal Photos of the Year. The UK’s “The Telegraph” present 30 Photos of the year, in the category “Feeding and fighting”. The first image is fantastic. Check all the categories for some more cool photos.

Photos of the Year. Naturescapes.net presents their Photos of the Year Gallery. Some amazing images here, all of them. Justin Reznick’s Grand Teton image is superb. Congrats to everyone.

Quote #1: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

ANWR turns 50 Years old. And I’ll plug my own slideshow here. If you haven’t seen it, take a wander through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with this birthday tribute; 50 years since the establishment of the Refuge. Here’s to the next 50.

Photographers present their 2011 favorites. Jim Goldstein hosts the annual photo-pallooza, with well over hundred and fifty photographers offering their favorite images from the last year. Thanks to Jim for putting this together. Check out the work here.

Photography and Conservation. A video from the ILCIP, International League of Conservation Photographers. “In a new video documentary, some of the world’s foremost conservation photographers discuss the critical role photography plays in calling attention to threats faced by the natural world and in affecting global change.” Watch the Video documentary. “You really can’t have successful conservation without photography shining a light on it”.

Photography Business Plan. A helpful article on mapping out where you might want to head, starting now. Contrast this structured approach to the typical “let’s see what happens when we press this” strategy adopted by most “artist” types (yes, yes, yes, I know, gimmea  break here, OK?) Start Your photo business plan for 2011.

Frog and a Snake. Of all the amazing images coming from the countless weather related madness around the world, this one is pretty wild. A frog hitches a ride on a the back of a brown snake to flee the flooding in Queensland, Australia.

Photo Editing Tips. Another article via Jim Goldstein’s blog, Experienced professional Gary Crabbe offers his advice on editing photos. A helpful read, well worth your time. Gary’s really someone to learn from, so this article is full of useful tips.

Aperture Blog. Aperture users would do well to subscribe to this great blog. With a new look, it’s a great site.

Nature’s Best Magazine. 2010 Winners published in Nature’s Best Magazine. Windland Smith Rice International Award Winners. Some wonderful photography here, of course. Look for Bence Máté’s Green-crowned Brilliant Hummingbird and Green Pit Viper – stunning shot.

Meditation and the Brain. Not directly “photography” related, but I’m sure the findings would be very similar had they studied making art. “an 8-week meditation course leads to structural changes in the brain”. Short article from Scientific America.

Odds and Ends

We are Cyborgs now. Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. Amber Case studies the symbiotic interactions between humans and machines — and considers how our values and culture are being shaped by living lives increasingly mediated by high technology. Good, short presentation.

Google and Bing? Who’s copying who? Google says Bing is “cheating, copying our search results”. Perhaps what’s most disturbing is Bing’s response, in the article: “Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this.”

Quote #2: “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

Science and People. Are we hard-wired to distrust science? “The absence of scientific evidence doesn’t dissuade those who believe childhood vaccines are linked to autism, or those who believe their headaches, dizziness and other symptoms are caused by cellphones and smart meters. And the presence of large amounts of scientific evidence doesn’t convince those who reject the idea that human activities are disrupting the climate.” This is a pretty interesting article, read it here.

Facebook Ads are up. Facebook continue to spread the word, and make every single word you utter someone else’s spam. Now they’ve “introduced a new advertising vehicle called Sponsored Stories, which takes all those shared “likes,” check-ins and other actions that are already being posted by you and your friends and turns it into a paid ad.” The folks at Facebook say who tested this out said ”it helped with brand identification and retention.” Seems like there’s no end to this stuff. Full article.

2010 Tops off a hot decade. And yet the deniers continue. “Topping off the warmest decade in history, 2010 experienced a global average temperature of 14.63 degrees Celsius (58.3 degrees F), tying 2005 as the hottest year in 131 years of recordkeeping.” From the Earth Policy Institute.

Winter on the Kuskulana River, Kuskulana Gorge, near the McCarthy Road, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. During the summer this river rages a dirty silty brown, a seething torrent of dirty water. At the lower water levels of winter, it becomes a beautiful turquoise. Fantastic place.

That’s the news from here til next month. If you have any items you’d like to add below, please do so. The only qualifiers are that you must have actually read the article/watched the video/browsed the photo/s, AND thought the link actually worthwhile sharing. Put everything else on Twitter.

Thanks folks.

Cheers

Carl