Mentoring is a time honored method for passing on decades of learned information from one person to another. Not only can you learn a specific topic, finding a mentor can bring growth to other aspects of your art you were never aware of. It’s also great to know there is someone who has your best interest at heart and will give you candid, honest feedback while helping your improve. Picking a mentor need not be a hard process or one fraught with fear. Ok, there might be a bit of fear but the benefits of getting over that fear far outweigh the effort. Grab a notebook and let’s take a look at some of the important points in picking a photography mentor.
1. Know Your Favorite Subject Matter
Let’s start with you first. What is your favorite topic? Are you big on architectural photography? Wildlife? Sports? The list goes on and on and chances are you fit into more than one bucket. Most of us do. After listing out a couple of your favorite topics, narrow the list down to your top two. These are the, “If I could only study two types of photography, I want them to be ……” topics. It’s important to do this step first. First, it helps you focus (har har har) and second, it helps you really focus. You’ll have time later to find a mentor for each topic, for now, let’s keep it simple with just two. Read the rest of this entry
You’re done, that’s all it takes to install Photo Nose Pro by Acute tools. I was sent this little (1.78mb) piece of photo recovery software by the guys at Acute Tools to try out, and what a great little piece of software it is. I use recovery software on a weekly basis in my “day job” mainly for recovering failed drives and that sort of thing. I’ve used about five different suites of recovery software in the course of my IT life and have not had much trouble with any of them as was the case with Photonose Pro… The install process took a whole forty seconds, then, with a double click I was well on my way to recovery.
I shot a 4gb card of photos last night in cr2 format (That’s Canons RAW file format) and, as ever was quite keen to get the photos onto my laptop for developing in Adobe Lightroom. I popped the little door open and slipped the card out and, to my dismay, noticed as the card was popping out that the file write was probably still part way through. Now, I know that the camera powers down when you open the little door, but, I managed to get it to power down mid way through a file write and corrupted the card! Brilliant… Well, not all bad, the shoot was just part of my threesixtyfive so it wasn’t crucial, but, it was an ideal time to put Photonose through its paces!
I’ve just emailed details of the event to those who registered but as a few of the emails bounced wanted to put it up on the blog also. If you didn’t previously register your interest but still want to come you’re more than welcome to join us. Just leave a comment below so we know to expect a few more (not that numbers matter too much - Vegas is a big place).
Following are the details of the Photo Walk
Date - Friday 19 September (we know not everyone will be there on the Friday night but it was the only real time available when we surveyed the organizing team).
On a related side note. Looking at our stats at Amazon (where we get a glimpse into what readers from DPS are buying after clicking on Amazon links here) it seems that quite a few of you have bought the new Nikon D90 DSLR which has video. I’m looking forward to hearing your reviews from this camera - which should be very soon as Amazon currently have stock of the D90 and are shipping it already (or at least are at the time of publishing this).
I’m really enjoying the videos in this series on outdoor portrait photography from pro photo life. Here’s another one - this one focuses upon group portraits - with some good tips at the start on focal length and depth of field for portraits.
This one is a little less ’step by step’ than last time - but shows you a shoot of a small group of people in action.
This week’s assignment Contre-jour, which was a difficult one. The goal of the assignment was to shoot against the light, kind of the polar opposite of HDR. So our winners this week were people who used that idea to their advantage. Our winner was hlngre23 for the picture of the child on the toy tractor, which has not only lovely colours, but also evokes the innocence of a child about to go out and face the world. Our first runner up was leafyfingers picture of her cat, which, while duller in colour than hlngre23’s shot, had very strong lines and the entire shot couldn’t help but capture your eye. And last, but not least is zetson’s Contre-Jour Amour, which, believe it or not is zetson (even if it does look like a rock star in a huge stadium!). Well done everyone!
Our current assignment is Morning. Anything that deals with a commute, sunrise, breakfast… things that bring up those images of morning. In order to be eligible for the mini-contest, your photo needs to have been taken between 3 - 17 September 2008, your post must include “Assignment:Morning” in it to show you want it counted for the contest, the exif needs to be intact, and you need to post the date the picture was taken in your post. Next week’s assignment is “Filters” (e.g. physical filters, WB settings, or post-processing to enhance an image), and those pictures need to have been taken between 10 - 24 September 2008. Good luck!
Hot Threads
Glossary of New Photographic Terms: You may know the usual photography terms like aperture, or rule of thirds… but what about PhotoSlop, Floormat, or Compost-ition? Find out what all those terms mean in this thread, and add your own.
Che-Style Portraits: This Photoshop technique was first shared in the Share Your Shots section, but i speak in math was kind enough to put up a step by step illustrated tutorial in our new tutorials section. Once you’ve tried this technique, come share your results in that Share Your Shots thread.
Ideal Glass for Photographing People: This gear thread talks about what kind of lens is ideal for photographing people. Is there an ideal lens or focal length? Is there an ideal aperture? If you have a favourite lens for portraits or you’re looking for a new one, come join the discussion in this thread.
Your Avatar - why?: On the forum, the little picture next to you name when you post is your avatar. But why have you chosen that picture to represent you? Is there any story behind picking that one? Or is it just a picture that you like? Come share with us in this thread.
What Would You Do (#68): What Would You Do is our ongoing post-processing thread, open to all levels of skill, where you get to try your hand at post-processing another member’s photo. The full rules are in the thread, and we’re always looking for new photos to use in the thread.
Other Threads to Note
You may have noticed that we’ve recently added a tutorial section to the forums. If you hadn’t noticed or you haven’t seen the tutorial that you’re looking for yet, why not come suggest what you want a tutorial about in this thread?
Image by Shenghung Lin
Today 
As a followup to the great recent discussion here on the blog about 
