Category Archives: My Comments/Rants

Comments or rants I make about things I see or hear.

Back from Fargo

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Back from Fargo with a bunch of pictures of the kids in the pool. We met some of the family from Winnipeg in the middle. Each of us had to drive about 4 hours. The Holiday Inn in Fargo has a water slide park called Ship Wreck Bay. I am sure I got some pretty good pictures of the kids having fun. The best ones are probably on the Stylus 790, a waterproof camera. I was great. We were in and out of the water all weekend, and it just lived in my pocket. I could pull it out whenever, and never needed to worry about it getting wrecked. It is a great camera to have to just take snaps of the kids.

Kate likes it too. I can give it to her, and she can wander around taking pictures without us worrying about her dropping it. Waterproof, shockproof. Awsome.

Anyway, hope to have some pictures later.

I missed the boat

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Not literly. I don’t really have any boats around here that I could miss. What I did miss was getting in on the DLWS trip to Kauai. I am bummed. I thought about it way too much. I just kept thinking about cost, and when I finally got the nerve to pull the trigger, it is full. Bummer. I am on a waiting list. Who wants to cross fingers with me?

I am not sure what other trip I could do this year. NC is full, and Maine is after when¬†my¬†NWA voucher expires. That leaves Michigan for this year,¬†that I could theoreticly drive to. Not my first pick for locations. I am sure that it would be great, but it doesn’t seem as exotic at Hawaii. Hmmmm…

Scott Kelby Stirs the Pot

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I suppose that when you are somewhat famous, everything you say has a chance to get spun out of control. It is like this for Scott Kelby. The last couple of days he has posted about a photo shoot that he did, and the post processing he did with some of the images. Part 1. Part 2. There is just so much to comment on this post…

First, having someone document a shoot is pretty cool, I think. The fact that this one wasn’t going well just makes it even better. Shows that we all have to keep our heads on straight, and can still pull something out of the ashes.

Second, Scott shows us an effect plugin which he decides not to recommend. This is great. I like to see what people are using and how it is used. I don’t buy plugins (yet). They just seem soooooo expensive, and that is part of the reason that Scott does not recommend it.

Third, the comments are crazy entertaining. The plugin, by Lucis Art is what is driving all the comments. It is a mostly one trick pony that creates a rather striking effect. Scott posted about a older version of this a while back, and how to create it without a plugin. The comments concentrate on two things. One, they don’t like the Dave Hill look (I think he has some great photo’s), and those that think that the effect is overused. First, Dave doesn’t use the plugin. He invented this “look”. He certainly has the right to do to his photo’s what he likes. Why wouldn’t anyone else? I am amazed at the self richousness of photographers. Raw vs jpeg, crop vs no crop, in camera light balance vs post, “natural” vs post. The list is endless. I wish people would just take pictures. If you don’t enjoy someones work, just move on. I haven’t seen others using this effect, but then I don’t actively look for them. I did notice a couple of flickr groups, but I hadn’t seen them before today. I have yet to see in in print. Hardly overused. But who cares anyway.

One interresting thing is that a commenter talked about a plugin I had not heard of before from Topaz Labs . They have a plugin that comes close to this for a lot less money. I don’t know how close, because I haven’t tried it yet, but it does have a free trial. They also have other plugins for noise, sharpening, and others. I would love to know how good the noise one is. I could use a good noise filter.

Why I think the D90 video sucks

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Back of a D90 showing live view

Back of a D90 showing live view

I have been trying for a few weeks now to take some video of the girls with the D90. I have tried in a couple of homes now. It always looks poor. The reason… no auto focus. When I am trying to shoot indoors, I am always running out of light. I need to open up the lens giving me no depth of field. I used to have a old Cannon DV recorder. I don’t remember having that issue with that camera. I have a Epson Stylus 850 too, and while the video is smaller, doesn’t have the focus issue the D90 has.

So, I have the camera set, I put it into live mode so I can see the action on the back of the camera. I then spend the next few minutes asking the kids to hold still. The focus system on live view is the most ridiculous, frustrating, and useless piece of tech to be over hyped on a camera that I have ever seen. Unless you have something that is sitting/standing still, getting the green square “go ahead I’m in focus” indicator is an exercise in frustration. I was trying to get focus locked on one of my girls that was dancing in the living room, and it was often focusing on the wall behind her. She would move out of the little square, and it would lock onto the wall behind. I don’t care if it is phase detection, contrast detection, or some new futuristic sonar system, it just needs to be better.¬† Imaging Resource has more on live mode, and they are more positive, but the fastest focus times they found was 2.3 seconds. Not good enough.

This brings us to the low light issue. I am forced to use a large aperture with shallow depth of field. This means that the kids need to stay in the narrow focus plane. Ya right. The camera will not change focus when the video is capturing, so I have video where the kids float in and out of focus. Like I said before, I didn’t have this issue with a previous DV camera that only cost the price of one 3rd party lens for a DSLR.

Others seem to do OK. See video here. But, most of the video seem to be outside. I suppose that outside with a larger aperture and greater depth of field would help, but this just isn’t workable for video inside. Maybe you have a bank of flood lights you can use inside your house. Maybe you’re winters are not at -30 and dark at 4:30, but shooting outside in better light just isn’t an option right now. None of the light issue would help the ridiculously slow focus in live view though. I for one am quite disappointed. It seems like more of a gimmick than something useful.

Happy New Year

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So, I started to think about the last year, and what my New Years resolutions might be. So what did I do last year?

  • I started up the blog again.
  • Got my first full year of DSLR shooting under my belt
  • Spent a bazillion (well, to me) on photoshop, but don’t really know how to use it.
  • Upgraded my camera to a D90, and promptly stopped taking pictures

Yea, I am not sure what happened. The pre winter blah’s seemed to hit me in November around my birthday. I had finished the Marathon, purchased the D90 that I had been saving for for quite some time (actually before it was announced), and then petered out with no real goals. So what are the goals for the new year?

  • Read six new photography books. I was going to say 12, but lets be realistic. New ones to me.
  • Find a mentor. I need to find someone to shoot with, someone that can push me, and someone that can tell me why the photos that I take are just not quite there.
  • Do a 365 series of the kids. This will at least put the camera in my hands, and hopefully help with the next point.
  • Learn about off camera flash. Actually I have been trying to learn for awhile, but not having an off camera flash was a bit of an impediment. I now have a SB800, so I need to start to put this to practice.
  • Get more comfortable with Photoshop. I want to finish Scott Kelby’s 7 step progarm, and then do it again.
  • Finish the christopherwardphotography.com site. Ok, no one ever “finishes” a site, but I want to finish the new site I am working on. This shouldn’t be too hard to do in the beginning of the new year. I was hoping for Jan 1, but you know…
  • Attend a multi-day photography workshop. This one is mostly a cost issue, but I don’t have a big hardware list at the moment for this year.

I suppose I could go on with other little things I want to finish and do, but those are the bigger ones I guess. I didn’t mention anything about vision. I don’t really know how to set a goal for that one. It will just have to sit there in the background hopefully leading the way.

WordPress Themes

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So, I have been sitting here thinking I need to update the theme I am using to 2.7, when I found this link. There are a ton of resources listed here about WordPress themes, but the most interresting is here.¬† It is about Justin Tadlock, and how he created a “base” theme for you to use. Using this well structured base, you may only need to modify css files. His “base” theme is called hybrid, and it is not the prettiest theme, but it is not meant to be. It is to be the starting point. He has two child themes there that both start with hybid, and they are very different. Hmmmm. Maybe that is the way to go…

Best Photography Blogs

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I was out on Scott Kelby’s blog when I saw he linked to a post on The Top 100 Photography Blogs. I looked through the list, and Scott’s is on the list (why he linked to it in the first place), but not all the places I check in with on a mostly daily basis are there. It got me thinking. Where and why do I check in with different blogs? So here is my much smaller list of photography blogs I read regularly and why.

  • Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider – I just love this guys writing style. He is very honest, genuine and fun. I come here to read about general photography and shooting stuff, and for pure entertainment. I just like reading this blog. I think it was one of the first photography blogs I came across, and I have ben hooked ever since.
  • David DuChemin’s PixelatedImage – This is blog about vision. About one mans quest to take his inner vision and turn it into images. It is a very interesting read. David often “rants” about the industry and can provoke discussion. I got caught up in one of his rants once, but it is almost always worth a read. My own vision I find somewhat elusive, and through David’s blog I am looking for it bit by bit.
  • David Zizer’s Digital Pro Talk – This is all about the wedding photographer. Sort of. He is an amazing portrait photographer, and offers many tips and insights into gear, the business, weddings shoots, portrait and location shoots, using flash, and more. He writes well, and you can always pick up some useful piece of information from this blog.
  • Joe McNally’s blog – He makes long rambling stories into posts that just have to be read. I always get a chuckle out of things he has written. I think of Joe as Mr. Speedlight. His blog and books are all about this travels, shoots and the half dozen or so Nikon Speedlights he seems to carry with him.

That is about all I really check in with on a daily basis, but there are several others that I will stop in a check out as well. These are in no particular order, but I usually stop by once every week or so.

  • David Hobby’s The Strobist – The number one stop on the internet for a off camera small flash education. There is lots of material here to look at other than the blog, and I have spent some time going through the 101 and 201 intro how to classes.
  • Jao Van de Lagemaat’s blog – I “met” Jao on the ArsTechnica forums, and check into his blog every once in awhile. He takes great landscape pictures, and has posted some interresting things about color, lightroom, RAW, and other things.
  • Steve Weller’s Bagelturf – Another small blog that I happened upon while looking up Aperture related items. I check in on this guy from time to time to see if any Apple/Aperture/programming things he is up to are interesting.
  • Dave Cross Dave Cross Online – I have to check out the Canadian every once in a while. Some of his recent “finish the sentance” interviews have been funny. He also stars with Scott Kelby on the Photoshop User TV video blog that I try to watch each week.
  • John Paul Caponigro’s Bog – If you want to learn about light, here is the place to go. The blog can be technical, but practical, and you will learn all things light and photoshop.
  • Moose Peterson’s Blog – Wildlife photographer extraordinaire, Moose will teach you tons about taking that great wildlife or landscape shot. Lots of entries from his blog are from the seminars that he takes part in, including the DLWS, that I would love to take part in.
  • Sly Arena’s PixSylated – He is often giving great tips on using small flashes and other fun photography stuff.
  • Matt Brandon’s The Digital Trekker – Matt is a travel photographer creating pictures out of his vision of the world. Along the way he tries to pass his insights and thoughts on in his blog. He lives in Singapore and travels quite a bit, which puts a neat spin on his insights.

Creativity, the Artist, Vision, and Me

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Matt Brandon posted an article just before Christmas that I read today about the photographer as artist, and where inspiration comes from. He linked in a Joe McNally article that I had read when he published it back on the 15th of Dec. It was reading Joe’s article that I decided that I need to scrap trying to get paid to take pictures and try to find ways to get great experience doing things I like to do, to both enjoy photography, and get some portfolio building stuff. Besides, I need to learn to be able to take pictures that would be worth charging for.

Matt’s post was interesting too. Before I started to consider myself a “photographer”, I don’t think I would have considered a photographer as an artist. Looking at others photography, and knowing now what can go into the picture taking, and the picture processing, I can definitely see others as artists. I have a friend that tries to call me an artist, and it just doesn’t sound right. I don’t see myself as an artist. I am trained as a technical person, and don’t really do “artsy” things. I came at photography from wanting to take pictures of my kids, and digital photography because I like toys I can use with computers, and becuase I hate getting pictures developed for the time and expense of it. Something has happened along the way though, and I have come to love photography for the photography part. My wife even tells me I don’t take as many pictures of my kids as I used to with a point and shoot.

I talk lots of different pictures now. Macro stuff, flowers, night exposures, landscapes, etc. But, and artist? I don’t think of myself as uncreative. I am the guy the other technical people turn to when they need site design, or graphics help. But, and artist? I am not sure why I resist it. I have accepted the label of photographer, but maybe I don’t feel that my pictures are yet good enough to get the artist label? Maybe. Maybe it is because I don’t feel that I draw on the artists creative well to drive my picture taking. I don’t even know what that is.

Matt and David talk a lot about vision. I am on a quest to understand really what that means. They make it sound like it is just something you have, that you use, that comes out in your pictures. Is this what artists draw from? Is this what artists want the world to see in their work? Both? I don’t know where to draw the creativity from within me. I know that I have some, I have great ideas, and am left handed for goodness sakes!¬† I don’t know what I want to say with my photographs. I just seem to like taking them, and get a kick when others like what I have done. There sure isn’t an overriding theme to my pictures.

What is really interesting is that both Matt and McNally talked about hitting a dry spell. Well, that would be me as well. I haven’t really taken many pictures this fall/winter (other than a few of family). I used to shoot every day, and wanted to go out and just walk around and see what I could take a picture of. So what changed, or dried up? Good question. It is not that I have technically perfected taking pictures. It is not that I can always get an image from my mind to the camera. So where did the passion go from a couple of months ago? That is probably why most of the recent posts have been about Javascript, and my flickr account has seen one new image since Halloween.

It is hard to systimatically get back on track when you don’t know where your creativity came/comes from, or what you vision is, or wants to be.

Merry Eye-Fi Christmas

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Merry Christmas to anyone that wants to be wished a Merry Christmas. This morning I opened a present to find an Eye-Fi explore card.Sweet. These things look pretty cool. I wish I could tell you how cool it is to wirelessly transfer images to my computer, but alas, it is not working.

The 2gig card comes with a reader and the software on the card. That is pretty smart. No disk required. I installed the software on my Mac laptop, and tried to go to the Eye-Fi manager app, which directs you to their website login. Problem is, I haven’t registered yet. I searched everywhere on their site, but can’t figure out how to register. It is supposed to send me their automaticly, where I would register and be good to go. Unfortunatly that is not how it is working.

I tired another mac as well, but the same thing happened. I looked on their forum, and found a thread that was suggesting that I may have to send the card back because it may have been registered to someone else already. That would be silly if they have no way to reset their cards or their online database. Hopefully once customer service is at their stations again, someone there can get this straightened out.

Once in a lifetime trip

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Wish I was saying that I am going on such a trip… but that may have to wait for a different lifetime. I got fired up about maybe going on the Lumen Dei Ladakh 2009 trip, but there is only one spot left, and I can’t pull the trigger. Annie and I talked briefly about me going on a trip for my 40th birthday, and this would be one heck of a trip. But total cost of trip, airfare, hotel, etc would require a herculean effort to raise the money. WIth Annie looking to switch jobs, my contract coming due, the economy tanking, I can’t see it happening. Besides, going away for 2-3 weeks would be tough. Kate would be just starting Kindergarten, and Lily would be 2 3/4. That would be a tough time to go. Maybe when the kids get older and we don’t have daycare/school costs. That’s only 4 years away. 🙂