photography


10
Aug 10

Concursos fotográficos, um bom negócio…

Não gosto de concursos fotográficos, e isto alarga-se a muitos outros tipos de concursos criativos; são dos maiores embustes onde quem participa está crente na ilusão de promoção, de uma esperança vã de crédito reconhecido e possivelmente de um prémio (muitas vezes magro); mas na verdade não passam de uma forma fácil para quem os organiza, muitas vezes grandes empresas ou autarquias (ou como no caso abaixo, do novo concurso do Turismo de Lisboa), de obter conteúdos a um custo marginal, até porque muitas das vezes nem existe prémio monetário, tal como neste excerto das regras do novo concurso do Turismo de Lisboa:

(…)

Cada autor deve mencionar especificamente, no respectivo email ou carta, que cede ao Turismo de Lisboa todos os direitos de utilização das imagens que enviar;

O Turismo de Lisboa poderá utilizar todas as imagens recepcionadas, sejam elas premiadas ou não;

(…)

O prémio consiste na publicação de uma fotografia por mês, durante um ano, a partir de Novembro, na Revista Turismo de Lisboa-RTL, no Guia Follow Me e no site do Turismo de Lisboa. Será ainda atribuída uma peça em cerâmica, representativa de Lisboa, a cada um dos 12 vencedores;

via Visit Lisboa

A troco de um potencial destaque nos meios de comunicação da entidade e de uma mão cheia de peças de cerâmica para os vencedores, fica-se com um arquivo mais recheado de conteúdos sem quaisquer restrições ou limitações de utilização, conteúdos aos quais os autores abriram mão de todos os direitos de utilização, ainda por cima porque se tratam de todas as fotos a concurso e não só as doze vencedoras. Não querendo por em causa a má fé este concurso do Turismo de Lisboa, ou tantos outros, a verdade é que se trata de um bom negócio para algumas das partes, mas provavelmente não para todas…


6
Jul 10

My current photographic to-buy list

[Update] Only one more to go!

I’m waaay over my budget for photographic gear this year, with a handful of new cameras and lenses bought recently, but I still have some “special needs” I need to take care of.

  1. A light, portable and yet relatively sturdy tripod – I’m not a real nature photographer so I don’t want a “put any kind of lens with any camera, whatever the weight, whatever the weather conditions” tripod, I’m thinking in those neat carbon fiber Induro’s, I keep hearing good things about them. A brand new Induro tripod with an Novoflex head, a light tripod with a very compact and solid ballhead.
  2. A photographic monitor – Nuff said, a bigger monitor that uses an LCD technology with full color reproduction. A new monitor is on its way.
  3. Some kind of centralized storage, other than external hard disks, to have a bullet-proof backup strategy of my photos and the rest of my documents; something with redundant storage and smart enough to automatically back them up to my online storage, and certainly not a Drobo: I tend to avoid solutions using proprietary formats.

30
Jun 10

52 Photographic Projects

Kevin Meredith (a.k.a. lomokev), one of the most original photographers of the flickr universe and a favorite of mine, has a new book about to hit the shelves. It’s called 52 Photographic Projects and it contains, you guessed, 52 techniques to try out with lots of good photos to look at, judging by Kevin’s gallery I bet the book is full of cool ideas (it’s already on my wishlist).

And the best thing is you can browse it below, almost all of it! Although you may not have time to read the small print.

52 Photographic Projects [Kevin Meredith]


12
Apr 10

Discover your favorite Flickr photographer

Found out, through Thomas Hawk’s blog, a neat little tool to help you discover your favorite Flickr photographer. And how is this done? Like all cool tools in a simple way: analyzing your Flickr favorites to check which Flickr users you favorite the most. Run it yourself and you may have a few surprises, mine was finding out _rebekka wasn’t among my most “favorited” Flickr users in my list shown bellow:

Curiously Thomas Hawk ended up being present in the list, although it isn’t a surprise it’s still funny.

Tafoni’s Flickr Favorite’s Explorer

[via Thomas Hawk Digital Connection]


14
Jan 10

All my photo favorites!

I just created a pipe (the little Swiss army knife of Web 2.0) that merges my most recent favourite photos in several photo galleries and bookmarking services: Flickr, Zooomr, deviantArt, vi.sualize.us, we♥it.

My combined photo “favorites” (in case the embed above hasn’t loaded properly).


30
Dec 09

What I Learned Doing All My Photowalks This Year

 

I could copy this blog post and use it as my own, as the experiences are so similar, even if I think I haven’t done 52 photowalk this year. Really worth reading (the original post, that is).

A Good Camera Bag Makes a World of Difference

Very, very true (and I even use a similar “slingshot” bag). This is valid for longer walks were a comfortable bag makes the difference, plain shoulder bags just don’t work.

I Really Like a Wide Angle Lens

Throughout the year my Sigma 10-20mm was always in my bag, because there’s no better lens to tell a story than a wide angle. But I used it nearly to exhaustion, to a point where I could only “see” in wide angle, which leads to the next lesson.

I Also Really Like a Nifty Fifty

At some point this year I had to switch lenses to “reset my sight”, for being too much used to my wide angle lens: I could only see lines and perspectives. So I went back to my prime lenses more regularly and I remembered how much love them, how much I loved the narrow depth of field, the small f or how light and small those lenses are. I started with my Nikkor 50mm but ended up buying the new Nikkor 35mm DX  (a true nifty fifty for digital cameras).

The Golden Hour is Where It’s At

Basic photographer rule. ‘Nuff said.

Composition Matters

Composition matters a lot, and this means looking, staring, seeing things and wait to get the best of the photo.

Nature is My Comfort Zone

For me it’s more street or urban photography, with some landscape photography in between.

Experimenting with Editing Can be Fun

This is a consequence of next lesson, shooting in RAW made me more comfortable in playing with light and colours, and this means now I’m having more fun in post-processing photos.

Shooting in RAW is Worth It

Nowadays I shoot exclusively in RAW, once you get there you won’t go back.

 

What I Learned Doing 52 Photowalks in One Year [iffles.com]


1
Oct 09

Let’s do a #mobilePhotowalk !

Mário Pires has an interesting challenge for the forthcoming Sunday: a #mobilephotowalk! It’s a simple challenge, inspired by Chase Jarvis “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You”, and limited to something as ubiquitous as a camera phone (no fancy lenses or cameras). There will be a real photowalk at Óbidos, but you can take part everywhere in the world.

For more details on how to participate check the link bellow:

Let’s do a #mobilePhotowalk!  [Retorta]

————————–

O Mário Pires está a organizar um desafio bem curioso para o próximo Domingo: um #mobilephotowalk! A ideia não tem nada de complicado: inspirado pelo “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You” do Chase Jarvis este projecto será limitado a telemóveis com camera fotográfica, não havendo objectivas, tripés e afins. Está agendado um evento real, com gente e tudo, em  Óbidos, mas pode-se participar a partir de qualquer parte do mundo.

Para mais detalhes sobre os vários pormenores do evento ver o link em baixo:

Let’s do a #mobilePhotowalk! [Retorta]


16
Mar 09

You can’t get more live than twitter

magnum 

I’m a big fan of Twitter, it’s a pretty simple service and a great way to share thoughts with the “cloud” and interact with people, is even useful for organizations to get closer to their followers/clients/etc. Magnum Photos is one of those organizations that seems to know how to use it, and if your were paying attention to their Twitter account last week you may had seen the tweet shown above, where photographer Larry Towell spared some time to answer the questions of all of those interested in photography and photojournalism.

You can’t get more live than that, but you can still catch up with the virtual interview right here.

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27
Feb 09

10 Flickr groups that do more than giving shiny awards

Not long ago I wrote a little rant in this blog about the shallowness of Flickr’s “award groups”, today decided to be a bit more constructive and point some that give you more than shiny awards:

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18
Feb 09

Flickr’s “award groups” are just like candy

One of the most interesting sides of flickr has to be the social and community features: anyone can create a group and build a small, or not so small, community around a given theme,feature,camera,etc. (just like I did for Nikon FM2 owners). Nowadays there are lots of groups available and eventually the rules for some have become more and more complicated, like: must comment/tag/favorite (any combination of those three actions) X photos for each Y photos added to the group’s pool.

The latest trend in flickr is “award groups”, where you “award” (add a corny, colorful, flashy and sometimes large image) an existing photo in the group’s pool or, much worse, invite a photo to the group’s pool. These “award groups” are a bit like candy: it may taste good but in the end candy will give you teeth cavities, become tired of all that sweetness (check the figure below) and get absolutely no nutritional value. In other words: these groups “pollute” the comments area, have almost no meaningful information and are useful only to feed someone’s ego.

PS- For a kick-ass, but not for the faint-hearted, group head to Delete Me Uncensored.





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