Weekend Photo Shoot
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of setting up in my living room to shoot some photos of my beautiful wife Kim, her friend Tisha and her husband Steve, and even get a new headshot taken – by Kim.
Find out more about the setup I used and check out a selection from the shoot after the jump…
Points of View Photo Project #24
Welcome to the 24th edition of the Points of View Photo Project here at Jason D. Moore Photography!
UPDATE: New deadline for submitting your version of the image for week #25!
Each week readers from all over the world tackle a common source image and display it to show the many interpretations, perspectives, and approaches that can be taken from the same starting point. I always fins it interesting how a single image can be manipulated and processed to express such different feelings and emotions.
If you are new to the project, or if you’ve been following along regularly and would like to participate, be sure to scroll to click on “More…” and scroll down to the bottom to download the source image for next week and learn how to submit.
But now, on with this week’s images!
Points of View Photo Project #22
Welcome to the 22nd edition of the Points of View Photo Project! This week we have been lucky enough to have a chance to work with not one, but three source images from reader and blog contributor Steve Kalman who challenged us to produce an HDR image, if we were so bold to try it.
Read on to see what some of our regulars have done with these photos and to learn how you can grab next week’s source image and participate in this excellent project that gets your creative juices flowing, invites you to experiment and try new things, and opens you up to the different perspectives that can come from a common image.
Also, be sure to scroll down to the bottom to find out how you can share your photos and a source image for one of our upcoming editions of the project!
January 2010 Photo Contest Announcement
That’s right! With the new year comes a new Photo Contest for you all!
For anyone new to the contests, basically all you have to do is head over to our January 2010 Photo Contest Flickr Group and submit up to 3 of your photos. At the beginning of February, I will select the winner.
So take the new camera you got for Christmas out of its box, install your brand new copy of Lightroom, process it using your new Photoshop plugins, and send in your shots today for your chance to win!
Best Shots of 2009: A Year in Review
As the old year passes I like to take a few minutes and review my work from the previous 12 months.
I know I took more bad shots than good but, as I’ve been told, a professional is someone who knows which photos to leave out of their portfolio. I also tend to believe that any artist worth anything is never satisfied with their work. It is never finished, simply abandoned.
So as we round out the year, rather than showing you some great shots, here is a collection of my photos that sucked the least. (Just kidding…)
Take a look through my Best Photos of 2009 gallery and let me know which are your favorites!
The Results Are In: December 2009 Photo Contest!
As the year comes to a close, so does another one of my Monthly Photo Contests. Before announcing the winner for the December Photo Contest, I’d like to take a moment to thank all of our contest sponsors over the past year including Westcott, Scott Kelby, Mpix, IGT America, onOne, Unified Color, Photoshop Cafe, What the Duck? and Kelby Training. Thank you for all of your generous support and for working with me to encourage our fellow photographers to grow with every shot.
I’d also like to thank everyone who has entered my contests this year. Whether you won a prize or not, I want you to know that I saw artistry in each and every shot and you are all more than capable of doing great things behind the lens. Keep it up!
And now, for our winner…
Wonders of Life – Flickr Photo Contest
Want a chance to win a Canon T1i?
I was contacted recently about a photo contest sponsored by the LIFE Foundation – a non-profit that works to educate people about making smart decisions in order to safeguard their families’ financial futures. They don’t endorse any product or company, they only seek to help people make educated decisions to protect their loved ones.
The purpose of the competition is to get Americans thinking about life insurance and how it can help preserve life’s wondrous moments. Submit one digital photo that captures a wondrous moment in the life of your family—one that conveys true peace, joy and meaning.
Enter and you may be able to capture other wondrous moments with a new Canon T1i, 12.2-Megapixel Digital SLR Camera—the top prize in the Wonders of Life Photo Contest. The camera is an $800 value! Entering is easy. During September 2009, upload your best digital image to the “Wonders of Life” Group at the photo-sharing website Flickr.com.
In addition to the Grand Prize, a panel of judges will select five Runners-up, with each receiving a $150 gift card to Bestbuy.com. Winners will be announced on or about November 1, 2009. Winning photos will be featured on the LIFE website.
Send in your photos in by the end of the month for your chance to win!
From Whence Does It Come?
Inspiration is a fickle force.
I go through periods of time when I am driven to make images and do my thing. I can see so clearly and the motivation is so strong and I feel so creatively alive.
Then there are those times when I don’t pick up my camera for weeks other than for the day job. I’ve taken maybe 5 shots in the last couple of weeks. They were employee mug shots so we could check off a box for our PCI compliance that we have all of our employees’ photos posted. And believe me, with the run and gun pace we had to do it, there was certainly no art to it at all.
It’s times like those – times like these – when I don’t really feel all that creative. I can’t find my muse and everything I do either starts looking the same or just doesn’t feel right.
I’m never sure how to get myself out of the rut. I look at other photographers’ work, which often makes me feel inferior. I try to think up little projects for myself – finding circles, or the color yellow, or something like that – but it sometimes feels forced. It’s so frustrating!
What do you do to pull your creative self out of moth balls? Where do you turn to get back into it?
September Photo Contest
Please forgive the lack of a contest in August. With all of the excitement surrounding the BIG Photo Contest and the cool prize from Mpix for the July Photo Contest, I thought it made sense to take the month off.
Now that the month has begun, I’d like to open up the September Photo Contest! Complete details, as always, can be found on our Photo Contests page and entries may be submitted in the September Photo Contest Flickr Group.
The winner this month will receive something from the Jason D. Moore Photography Apparel Store. The winner will have their choice of one of the following Jason D. Moore Photography Logo items:
- Women’s Light T-Shirt
- Light T-Shirt
- Ringer T
- Women’s T-Shirt
- White T-Shirt
- stein
- mug
- large mug
- or tote bag
Good Luck!
Points of View Photo Project #11
Welcome to the eleventh edition of the “Points of View Project“!
Every other Friday I will post a new, out-of-the-camera image for you to download. You may process, manipulate, composite, experiment, or otherwise alter the photo in any way you wish. The hope is that we will get to see a number of different takes on the same image and/or see it used in unique ways as a part of a new image.
This is not a contest or competition. It’s simply a way of stretching our creative muscles and to get those juices flowing through experimentation and seeing how many different interpretations can be applied to the same starting photo.
Check out our Points of View Gallery showing this week’s source image and how it has been seen from our contributors’ different points of view. I am especially pleased with this week’s contributions.
Thank you to everyone who contributed this week!
Here’s the image for week #12:
Click here to open the full-size version to download as your starting point. Have fun with it! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
You can do whatever you want to the photo as long as you use the given photo in some way as part of your final image. In fact, I know the potential is there for a number of people to end up processing the image in very similar ways and getting similar results. Because of that, I’d like to encourage you to experiment and/or take things a couple of steps further to really challenge yourself to make it truly unique.
Once you have worked with the image as much as you feel it needs, simply email it back to me at pov@jasondmoore.com by Wednesday September 9th for inclusion in the project. Please be sure to include your name, location, and website/blog URL so I may properly credit you.
If you would like to send in a photo – unprocessed, straight out of the camera – for us to use as our starting image for a future week, please send me an email to the same address listed above.
I’d like to note that the image(s) that will be used in a given week are only offered for use within the confines of the “Points of View Project“. I am not releasing any rights for use beyond creating your submission. I would also express the same for any starting images that may be provided by other participants. Feel free to re-post your version of the image on your site to share your participation in the project. I just ask for a link back here when you do.
The Points of View Photo Project is sponsored by Towner Jones Photography, LLC. Please take a few moments and head over to see some of the great things Rob is doing! If you would like to sponsor this or any other project here at Jason D. Moore Photography, or would like to support the site as a whole, please visit our “Become a Sponsor” page today to learn how!
Letting Google Know Your Photos Are Licensed
One of my coworkers was researching ways in which Google indexes images and how we might better leverage that for SEO purposes. Aside from using really good “alt” tags when inserting your images to your site or making sure you have some copyright info in your metadata, one interesting thing that Google Image Search has recently implemented is a way of refining your searches to images that are licensed – using Creative Commons, etc. – or that are Public Domain, or those that are not tagged at all. It’s an extra step to add in a little piece of code to your images but it’s easy enough that even a novice with HTML can take advantage.
Instead of me trying to explain it, here is Peter Linsley, one of Google’s Product Managers (original article – “Specifying an image’s license using RDFa“):
What do you think? What do you do to help make sure your images are secure?
“A Capitol Idea” via Gordon McGregor
I almost wasn’t going to share this one until I tried it for myself, but it’s just an interesting concept that I had to. This comes from Gordon McGregor of the blog Photo Expressions, a source I will often go to for inspiration and projet ideas.
Gordon shares with us how he was on a recent photowalk around Austin, TX that headed straight for the capitol building (above) – a location he’s shot countless times. In an effort to capture a familiar subject in a new way, Gordon shot about 200 frames at differing EV values – with the same white balance – and used some fairly “non-standard settings, to make it work badly” using Photoshop’s photomerge.
The result is this visually stimulating photo that keeps you in the image longer than if it were just another pano of an old building. Well done, Gordon! I’ll have to try that one sometime!
Digital Photographer Highlight: Karl Bratby
A few weeks ago I was introduced to the work of Nottingham wedding photographer Karl Bratby. There are a number of excellent wedding photographers out there and I love seeing their work because it brings me back to my own wedding and the joys that I felt. It’s the same with Karl’s.
Karl runs the blog iLifephotoblog which, in his own words is where he:
specializes in capturing relaxed portraits, amazing details and real moments in time, oh and don’t forget the romance…. we do all this for some of the coolest brides and grooms on the planet.
[It] is an archive of my personal and professional life, it features images from the weddings i shoot, the portraits i photograph and the friends and family that mean so much to me.
It is easy to get bored with a certain photographic subject because it is so easy to feel like you’re seeing the same things over and over again. One of the things I noticed right off with iLife and Karl’s style is that he is able to really bring out the personality of the couple through the shots but he is able to combine all the elements of composition, lighting, texture, contrast, moment, and pose to tell a story that is unique to each couple with whom he works.
I am always impressed with photographers, of any type, who are able to make each shot more than just a photo, each expression and pose really say something, and weave into each image a sense of timelessness. And Karl does that very well.
Nicely done!
An Unusual Street Address
I was looking through my shots from the Worldwide Photowalk in Cazenovia and came across this shot of a doorway on Albany St. that really caught my eye.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an actual address like this and thought it was interesting enough to snap a few. I know it’s not much but I thought the simplicity of it makes it work as a black and white. I also think that it captures a little bit of what I appreciate most from taking the time to intentionally be out there shooting and that is the small, and often unnoticed details of the world around us.
So next time you’re out shooting, or even just trying to make it through the day, take a moment and try to look at something you’ve never really paid much attention to before. You never know what you might find!
Photo Contest Reminders
We’re coming up on the end of June already and that means the deadline for my June Photo Contest is almost upon us! There are already a number of great shots submitted but there is still time for you to send in up to 3 entries for your chance to win a free 8×10 of one of my photos. Complete contest rules can be found in the bottom half of my “Contests” page.
Also, I’m excited to announce that we’re almost at the halfway point in my BIG Photo Contest and we’ve already received 26 photos so far! I know there are 22 people registered so you better get crackin’ so you will get your collection of shots in on time to be considered for the grand prize worth over $1,000! Once again, complete contest rules can be found on the “Contests” page.
I hope you will send in your work to be a part of one or both of these contests. And while you’re over on the Contests page, please be sure to check out what our sponsors have to offer. They each have some great products and services that every photographer can find useful.
Boston Photowalk Images
Last week while I was in Boston for the Internet Retailer Conference, I had the pleasure of meeting up with fellow photographer and regular reader Chris Stern to go on a photowalk around the Boston Common area along Tremont Street from the Ritz to the Old City Hall and back.
When I was in school at Boston University back in the day (“which was a Wednesday, by the way…”) I wandered these streets time and time again, but it wasn’t until I was out of college that I really got into photography and this was my first opportunity to get out and about in the city with my camera.
I took about 250 shots – which includes my usual 3-4 captures per subject/angle – and there is still a lot to get through. However, there have been a couple of standouts in the batch I’ve processed so far. View a small gallery of some of my shots from the day.
Points of View Photo Project: #6
Welcome to the sixth edition of the “Points of View Project“!
Every other Friday I will post a new, out-of-the-camera image for you to download. You may process, manipulate, composite, experiment, or otherwise alter the photo in any way you wish. The hope is that we will get to see a number of different takes on the same image and/or see it used in unique ways as a part of a new image.
This is not a contest or competition. It’s simply a way of stretching our creative muscles and to get those juices flowing through experimentation and seeing how many different interpretations can be applied to the same starting photo.
Check out our Points of View Gallery showing this week’s source image and how it has been seen from our contributors’ different points of view.
Thank you to everyone who contributed this week!
Here’s the image for week #7:
Click here to open the full-size version to download as your starting point. Have fun with it! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
You can do whatever you want to the photo as long as you use the given photo in some way as part of your final image. In fact, I know the potential is there for a number of people to end up processing the image in very similar ways and getting similar results. Because of that, I’d like to encourage you to experiment and/or take things a couple of steps further to really challenge yourself to make it truly unique.
Once you have worked with the image as much as you feel it needs, simply email it back to me at pov@jasondmoore.com by Wednesday July 1st for inclusion in the project. Please be sure to include your name, location, and website/blog URL so I may properly credit you.
If you would like to send in a photo – unprocessed, straight out of the camera – for us to use as our starting image for a future week, please send me an email to the same address listed above.
I’d like to note that the image(s) that will be used in a given week are only offered for use within the confines of the “Points of View Project“. I am not releasing any rights for use beyond creating your submission. I would also express the same for any starting images that may be provided by other participants. Feel free to re-post your version of the image on your site to share your participation in the project. I just ask for a link back here when you do.
The Points of View Photo Project is sponsored by Towner Jones Photography, LLC. Please take a few moments and head over to see some of the great things Rob is doing! If you would like to sponsor this or any other project here at Jason D. Moore Photography, or would like to support the site as a whole, please visit our “Become a Sponsor” page today to learn how!
This Past Week
My apologies for not being able to keep up this past week. I was exptremely busy in Boston with the Internet Retailer Conference and was pretty much out of commission the rest of the time. I was, however, lucky enough to be feeling pretty decent on Wednesday night when Chris Stern and I were able to meet up, along with my coworker Michael, to do some shooting around the Tremont Street area for a couple of hours.
I haven’t had a chance to process anything yet but I hope to this weekend. If you want to see a growing number of shots that Chris took, check out his Flickr page. Some really nice shots in there. I’ve really enjoyed Chris’ work lately and I’m really glad we had a chance to finally meet in person.
Until next week…
Boston Photowalk Tonight
Sorry for the lack of posting this week. Not only have I been consumed by this conference but I’ve been under the weather all week. But fear not, I’m on the mend and our impromptu Boston Photowalk is still on for tonight!
It’s not a formal photowalk by any means. It’s just a chance for anyone who wants to get out shooting in the city to get together and have a good time.
We’ll be meeting at the front entrance to the Hyatt Regency Downtown Boston at 6:30pm tonight and go from there. It’s only a block off of the Tremont Street side of Boston Common.
So charge those batteries, format those cards and come on over and walk with us!
In Boston
I’m now in Boston for the Internet Retailer Conference. Blogging might be a little light but I’ll do my best.
I’m here all week. Anyone up for a photowalk on Wednesday evening? We’re meeting at the Hyatt Regency Downtown – near Boston Common – at 6:30pm. Hope to see you there!
Remember to submit your photos now for both the June photo contest and the BIG Photo Contest
New Online Magazine: Creative Studio (CAFE)
I was looking through my latest email CAFE Cup news from PhotoshopCAFE and noticed that Colin just launched the first issue of his new online magazine, Creative Studio (CAFE).
For this inaugural issue, Colin has assembled an awesome group of experts to talk about what’s new in CS4. It’s more than just a listing of new features, they go in-depth to really show how some of the newest features work and how they will help you improve your workflow.
In other news, I was reading Scott’s post the other day about AllTop.com and how they are now letting you create your own page of RSS feeds. Scott links us to his page to see the blogs that he checks up on every day and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I am on his list! Very cool!
And speaking of Scott, I was reading the blog of my buddy Rob Jones of Towner Jones Photography and he recently posted about the judges for the “On Assignment” contest. I was asked to be on the panel of judges but when I saw that the other members were Scott and Photowalker Extraordinaire Jeff Revell, I was humbled.
I never want to sell myself short but I am always amazed when movers and shakers in the digital photography community take notice of what I’m doing here in my little corner of the web or when others count me among those same individuals whom I hold in such high esteem.
So, thank you Scott! And thank you Rob! for such honors.
