Competition success...

Congratulations to Manuel and Jose Manuel (again !) who recently both got second place in Photo Competitions with their respective companies Deimos and INSA.

The image above from Manuel show locals crossing the river to go to the Sunday Market in Kashgar, China...

And below from Jose Manuel is the road leading to Monument Valley, USA...

As always you can view all the images from club members by clicking the link over on the top right of the blog...

Our first book is published ....!

As you probably all know already the club has published what we hope will be the first of many books representing the images of its members.

Congratulations to José Manuel for getting the cover image with the 'most popular' photo of 2007.

If anyone would like further copies you can order them directly from Blurb in either hard or soft cover editions.

Thank you all once again for your efforts this year, because without you all we could not have achieved what we have... you should all feel very proud of yourselves...

The Marlboro Marine...

Mediastorm have their latest presentation of the effect that the Iraq war has had on Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller.

The presentation documents both his time in Iraq and his coming to terms with what he did and saw upon his return home. Plus the coming together of a soldier and photojournalist under extreme circumstances...

Autumn Theme Presentation...

Although not with as many images as normal (maybe the cold weather starts to take its affect), we battled against a badly focusing projector and blindless window to present our latest theme 'Autumn'.

There was plenty of lively discussion with the two images you see here generating the most comments regarding composition and post processing technique.

As a side note, we also got plenty of good resturant recommendations from José Manuel and I finally got to use my slideshow software.

Anyway, all the images in their glory can be found on our galleries webpage, please go and take a look and if you like any of them click the 'thumbs-up' symbol that appears when you hover your mouse over the image, so we can all see what are the most popular images.

You might want to check back on your own images as well, as since I have taken the password off the site, we have started to receive comments from outside of ESAC !

So... next theme is 'Geometry' and you get a break over Christmas as well, hope to see the number of images presented next time back to full strength.....!

6 Billion Others...

Yann Arthus-Bertrand of 'Earth from Above' fame, has put together this very interesting project which aims to create a sensitive and human portrait of the planets inhabitants.

More than 6000 interviews were performed in 65 countries where people were asked for there concerns regarding family, their experience, what made them laugh or cry and what gives life meaning etc...

Its absolutely fascinating to see and hear the thoughts of ordinary people from around the world. Yann states "The idea came to me while we were taking the shots for "Earth from Above" in Mali, one day when the helicopter was out of action. The pilot had gone and I was waiting for him in a little village where I started to have a discussion with someone. I stayed there the whole day, In the evening, by the fireside, that man I'd been talking to told me his entire life, his desires, his wishes, his ambitions - they could be summed up in four words - "to feed my family". In spite of the poverty, the drought, I still thought I understood the whole situation. But in fact I didn't have a clue until that man put it to me, just like that, looking me straight in the eye, not complaining, not asking me for anything. That meeting changed me, it changed the whole way I see the world..."

6 Billion Others....... take a look...

'Antartica: The Global Warning' recently won 1st place in the book category of the 2007 International Photography Awards.

What looks like a stunning body of work, also contains a message of the affect that man is having on his own planet. This one goes on my shopping list for future book purchases.

Check out the website as well you won't regret it....

printer for photography

Hi there

Maybe this is not the channel for this, but I'd like to get some advice from you. I plan to buy a printer basicly for printing pictures, though I'd like to use it as a general purpose printer as well. Could you give me any advice about it? (models, things to be taken into account, etc etc). I'd like to learn about colour calibration and so on too, any hint?
I know printing you holiday photos at home is not a good idea, but still I'd like to work on some specific pictures and get a nice printout, what implies some trial and error etc etc you'd better make at home.

All your ideas are welcome!

Thanks

Ricardo

Star gazing......

There is a lot of information regarding Astrophotography on the web, but this article recently posted on Naturescapes.net I find particularly interesting as its a very good place to start your investigation into this potentially exciting aspect of photography...

Tips and Tricks for photographing Autumn...

Photojojo have posted 12 Fantastic Fall Photo Tips, that I thought maybe useful for our pending Photo Theme.

Its mainly 'leaf' based but could provide some guidance, even though the leaves in Madrid appear to be taking their time to change colour and fall this year.....!!!

Another dimension to Photography: Water

I like to spend my time wisely (not really but it sounds good) so I try to combine two of my hobbies, photography and diving together to do underwater photography :-)

There is lots of info out there on the web. But there is one particular very nice online magazine called Underwater Photography . It has many beautiful photos (even for non-divers!) and items on material and many tips/tricks. (no, i'm not getting anything to say that).

btw. above picture was taken by me last year in one of the dutch lakes ;-)

12 Essential Phtoto Rules from Popular Photography...

In the past we have spoken about the sunny-16 rule, but do you know the moony 11, 8 and 5.6 ..?? (steady Richard.. ;-) )

You want a new digital camera which has a least twice the resolution of the last one, did you know you have to find one with 4 times more megapixels...!

Either way check out what Popular Photography thinks are the 12 Essential Photographic Rules...

Are you a Flickr-holic...?

Flickr has always been a bit of a talking point, what with advertising agencies rocketing unsuspecting photographers into the limelight, like this for example..... or those agencies with not quite so many scruples taking advantage of the overwhelming number of low cost images (i.e. taking them for free) and using them for national ad campaigns like this case with Virgin Mobile Australia

As an image resource and source of inspiration, you can't complain too much because there are plenty of images to see, but how do you sort the "wheat" from the "chaff" and get to those 'wow' images with the maximum efficiency, Howard French tells us what he does over on the Online Photographer...

Seam carving and resizing images...

This has begun to appear on a few different websites and I thought that you maybe interested in this new way of resizing images without distorting the content. I'll let the author explain the details in the video (your going to be amazed for sure...!).

For those of you who are not mathematically challenged there's a whitepaper that explains the concept in detail.

The website is here and you can even upload a picture and try out the software online.

Apparently one of the authors has been recently employed by Adobe, so we may see this appear in future versions of Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

Chase Jarvis on Commercial Photography...

I'm a big fan of this guys photography and its good to see a top professional sharing his idea's and giving us a glimpse into the hectic world of the Advertising/Commercial Photographer...

He has a number of online videos that show us what he gets upto on his photo shoots... he always looks like he has a good time (and just like a few members of our club he gets to go to windswept and exotic destinations rather often as well :-D...).. You can find them here if your interested :

New Zealand Shoot
Hasselblad Masters
Ninja Shoot

He's also a bit of a techy and DIY man, check out what he did to create a Photographers Laptop Case...

Anyway, back to the video above, which is his presentation at a 'do' for Photoshelter (an online image library) where he explains what it takes to be a Commercial Photographer, its almost an hour long so you should probably order a pizza before hand, but its packed full of spectacular images and idea's if you have the time to sit down and watch...

"Ocultos"

Hi all.

The "Círculo de Bellas Artes" opened yesterday an exhibition called "Stellar moments of the 20th century photography" (free translation from the spanish title :) ), including pictures by Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Riefenstahl, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Marina Abramovic and many others. I haven't visited it yet, but sounds interesting. Just for you to know.

For more info (sorry, in Spanish) : http://www.circulobellasartes.com/ag_expo.php?ele=38

El Círculo de Bellas Artes is in C/ ALCALÁ, 42, Madrid.

(The picture is 'Rituales en Haití' (2001), by Cristina Garcia Rodero.)

keeping track of new posts more easily...

Hi, In reply to an earlier question (on the mail). It is possible to subscribe (with your favourite rss-feed reader; e.g. google reader) to the ATOM (RSS) feed (there is a tiny link at the bottom of the blog page) for the ESAC Photo Club and then you can keep up (more easily?) with the new items posted. Good luck, Nick

Travel Photography Inspiration...

The 'Canon Digital Learning Centre' is currently hosting a series from the well know travel and nature photographer, Art Wolfe, here on its website.

As I know a lot of you enjoy this type of photography, I thought you maybe interested.. There's lots of info and advice mixed with a fair amount of Arts' stunning imagery..

P.S How many of you spotted the seagull in the image above ?

Mark Tucker...

I have long been a fan of the imagery of Mark Tucker, a prominent portrait and lifestyle photographer.

His use of tilt-shift lenses , overlaying of textures, compositional techniques and humour never cease to amaze me..

His website has recently been updated so if you have a few minutes to spare mosey on over and take a look...

Latest Flipbook from George Lange...

We've seen the work of George Lange in the past (see March entry), and I admit I'm quite partial to this type of presentation.

This time the images are from Israel and he promises that he has more in the pipeline. Anyway, check out the movie here if you feel so inclined.

Maybe I'll try this for the next Photoclub presentation, at least people can't complain about the amount of time it takes to show all the images..! ;-)

HDRI Updates....

Remember in the past we have talked about High Dynamic Range Imaging, which had its origins in CGI Graphic artist industry and is now finding its way more and more into photography.?

I just discovered a new website "HDRI News" which is dedicated to the theme, and that also offers software, news, an online community and lots of inspirational images...


You might also want to take a look at "Digital Outback Photo" as well, which is pioneering new HDRI techniques using DSLRs with fast frame rates (> 5fps), thereby eliminating the need for a tripod and opening up the opportunity for using HDRI without limitations...