b-Cleaning - Constantine Manos's American Color

Constantine Manos with Magnum starts this piece - "In everything beautiful there is something strange"

I usually find myself too busy to watch a lot of multimedia pieces, there are so many amazing ones out there and I just can't find the time to watch them all. I watched this piece from beginning to end and took notes.

I have been trying to redo my website and I was looking for direction. Manos hit all the right emotions. He talked about images being a kaleidoscope, strange and surreal, bizarre and finding offbeat places. A quarter of the images were made within a 20minute drive of me!

This piece is inspiration, and it not only gets the blood flowing to redesign my site but it makes me want to run out the door and make some images right now.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/color

Filed under "5 Star Photographers"

B-Cleaning - Street Shots, WNYC looks at amateur street photographers

WNYC has some great pieces sometimes. In this piece they look at 6 amateur street photographers and give others the opportunity to enter a street shots challenge.

I am a HUGE fan of street photography and I am always curious to see how others work, even amateurs. I still need to spend some time looking through these six three minute clips, but one of them looks at a woman who uses her iPhone to make street photos more than she uses her 20D. Another looks at a man who talks about shooting from the heart and not even lifting your camera to your eye.

http://www.wnyc.org/streetshots/

going in "Photojournlism -> Photo Tips/Articles" folder

b-cleaning - Wine and Kisses gift guide

I realize that Christmas just passed, but New Years and Valentines day are still coming up. Sometimes you need to find a gift for your significant other and one of the places to go check out is "Wine and Kisses."

They have some different categories of gifts including grab bags, romance goody bags, soaps and candles and more. The site does seem a little thin, but it's not a bad starting point.

Also be sure to check out the newsletter they have up. They have a nice wine pairing guide.

http://www.wineandkisses.com/

going to my "comparisson shopping" folder

b-cleaning - What the Duck

I finally put an RSS feed on this comic strip a few months ago, but my unsorted bookmarks are so old that this was still in the folder. "What the Duck" follows a duck who happens to be a photographer. He's been every type of photographer that you can imagine from a portrait photographer to a photojournalist.

Many of the strips touch WAY too close to home, but this is what makes them even more funny. I wonder how someone outside of the industry would even know some of this stuff.

http://www.whattheduck.net

going in "Entertainment" folder

A scary and wild Halloween photo booth with our dogs, a lion tamer, Palin, devil, black angel, unemployed yoga instructor, and an african drummer

If you remember back at the end of October (boy time flies) I put up some Halloween photos. After a VERY busy November I have finally finished toning the rest.

We have over 200 kids come to our house on most Halloweens. We love to see their costumes and hand out candy, plus we hate to be the spoiler house that turns out the lights for trick or treaters. We love getting dressed up too, so why waste it. We threw a party for our friends!

I have never setup a photo booth before and I thought Halloween would be a good opportunity. I brought out all of my lights, put up a drop cloth, tossed the camera on a tripod and tethered it to my laptop. I tried a bunch of things I have been meaning to experiment with to see how they all work.

Things not only worked, but they worked awesome! At a couple points I just had to pull the camera off of the tripod and get the great action shots of the characters my friends were portraying.

A witch, a horned yoga instructor, an African drummer, eyeball soup, a lion tamer (Or is she a ring master?), a horned Sarah Palin (Gotta love an Obama sign as a prop when you have Palin on set!), a black angel, our two little devil dogs, and a remote wielding photographer. Enjoy!

DeBary Hall and Mansion in DeBary, Florida engagement session of Ron and Paula

Did I mention what an amazing engagement photo shoot I had with Paula and Ron! You saw the sneak peak here, well this is the final slideshow!

We went to the Debary Hall Mansion, where we will be going back to in a few months, and I'm excited! We had James, their dog, out with us and we made some fun pictures of all three. After taking James back home, we moved on to this amazing springs. I have wanted to shoot photos at these springs for a while, but I didn't realize how awesome they were until we started exploring.

b-cleaning - How To Destroy the Earth

Need I say more?

http://www.qntm.org/?destroy

moved to "Entertainment"

b-cleaning - Chimping

Since the age of LCD screens on the back of digital cameras we have had "chimping." In this oldy but goody, Robert Hanashiro explores "chimping" and those that do it in two videos. It will give you a good laugh and a better understand of chimping if you aren't familiar with it.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/special_feature/chimping/index2.html

http://www.sportsshooter.com/special_feature/chimping/index.html

moved to "Entertainment"

Green Springs Park in Enterprise, Florida Engagement session sneak peak with Paula and Ron

I had a ton of fun with Paula and Ron. There are still a few more days before I get a chance to edit all of the photos, but I just had to get one online because the engagement shoot was so amazing.

First we did a few at the DeBary Hall Mansion. This is where they will be having their wedding next year year. Then we moved to this AMAZING park. I took photos of this park before it opened and this was my first opportunity to head back there.

The park was more amazing than I remember it. Paula, Ron and myself had a TON of fun running around this place and making cool pictures.

Look for the rest soon!

b-cleaning - Prepping Your Holga

This is a nice little video for first time Holga users. There are also some good pointers for those who have been using a Holga for a while on improving some of the functions.

I love my Holga, but have no way to scan film (Medium or 35mm) at the moment, so I've avoided using it.

http://blog.danesanders.com/2006/07/12/simple-holga-minute/

moved to "Photo Tips"

b-cleaning - This American Life

Anyone who has caught This American Life, or is a regular listener, on NPR knows how great it is. These people are truly the best story tellers in the business. They bring the weird, the cool and the interesting onto their show. Like the guy who travels in a Superman costume or the one who laundered illegally made money buy giving it away in items at a garage sale.

You could get suckered into listening for HOURS!

http://www.thislife.org/

Being put in "Other... - Spare Time"

b-cleaning - Does your insurance cover you?

This is a guide directed at Newlyweds, but it can be really useful to anyone. They look over the major types of insurance that you might need and explain it in simple terms. This would even be good if you just moved out on your own.

I highly recommend that everyone looks at the article on life and disability insurance, if you don't already have it!

http://www.thenest.com/channels/subchannel.aspx?channel=life&keyword=637

Moved to "How To"

100908 Seabreeze v Titusville

b-cleaning - Photo Tampering through the ages

This is an excellent site that looks at the history of Photoshop and altered photos. It goes as far back as the 1860s and is updated regularly!

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/

Moved to "Photojournalism:Ethics"