Lilahpops

I am so behind in my reading that this may well become a very weighty list.

Fireworks with a point-and-shoot

As my only digital camera is a point and shoot I found this article very useful. See the tips at A Matter of Memories for shooting fireworks - including some impressive examples:

• How to take great fireworks with a point-and-shoot
  

Flickr-ing

Neil Creek tells us the 10 things he hates about Flickr - and its users - and raises some interesting points. For me, my use of Flickr has changed as my photography experience has grown. I still very much enjoy being a part of the community and no doubt will for a long time to come. It’s what you make of it, right? I’ve even been known to give some unruly banner awards myself ;-)

• 10 Things I hate about Flickr (and its users)

How to hold your DSLR

A tiny tip from Beyond Phototips:

• Hold your camera right

Whiten your whites

Planet Photoshop has a quick tip on ensuring your white background is, in fact, white:

• Making sure your whites are really white

Sharpen from in-camera

Fotohacker explains why in-camera sharpening mightn’t be such a bad idea:

• Use of in-camera sharpening

Effects using a long exposure

Beyond Megapixels shows a variety of ways in which you can use a slow shutter speed to great effect. I especially like the zoom blur:

• Shooting with slow shutter speed

A stock partnership

JMG Galleries sheds lights on a new partnership between Flickr and Getty Images. Could this be a good thing for Flickrites?

• Getty and Flickr enter into a limited stock partnership

Storing your precious photos

Hyperphocal shares a few different ways to ensure you don’t lose your photos:

• 5 Ways to store your photos

Getting the focus right

Photodoto has excellent advice on the when, why and how of focus. No doubt your photos will improve after reading this:

• The importance of focus and quick tips on how to get it right

And last, but by no means least

Martin Gommel, incredible photographer, has another round-up of tips over at Digital Photography School:

• 20 More things I’ve learned about photography

Enjoy.

Some great reading and discussions going on around the web lately:

Are you a female or male photographer?

Brian Auer at Epic Edits Weblog recently took a “gender poll” of his readers with the aim of determining if his web content is equally balanced for both genders or if the website is (unintentionally) more targeted towards his male readers. As a female visitor to his blog, I find his content does not have a gender bias at all, it simply contains excellent articles, tutorials and tips about photography. The poll has generated a lot of discussion on his blog. Considering many, if not the majority, of the responses have been from his female audience, I don’t think he’s got anything to worry about:

• What’s your gender?

The “it” camera

Digital Photography School also took a poll of its readers to find out what are the most popular cameras used, with a tight race between Canon and Nikon:

• What are the most popular cameras at DPS

Photography links you need

This is on many a website already but I’m going to mention it all the same - just in case you missed it:

• 60 photography links you can’t live without

Why you should take photos

In a series of posts, Amy at Lives Less Ordinary is exploring the whys of starting photography, continuing and why you should take photos. This is the second post in the series:

• The Fire of Images: Why I Continue To Take Photos

Photographing your holiday

At Your Photo Tips find out how to take better holiday snaps:

• Take better vacation photos

And finally … what is your photography goal?

Shawn Duffy has been asking himself the hard questions, where his photography is going and putting a plan together as a result.

• Thinking out loud

Related posts

• See other posts from the What I learned about photography this week series

Enjoy.

Just some of the excellent posts I’ve read lately.

Feeling romantic?

Check out Shawn Duffy’s Paris series over at sduffyphotography.com - he’s been regularly posting photos during his trip. The black and white images are especially romantic. The link below goes to the posts he has tagged “Paris”:

• Photographing Paris

Black and White

As a nice segue to the above link, Beyond Megapixels has a great article on:

• How to create high contrast black and white images

Photo projects and why you need to participate

This is a rather timely link considering I have just opened a project for photographers of the vintage camera Voigtlander Vito BL. Neil Creek has written a guest post at Digital Photography School on:

• Photo projects and why you should participate

A fading post process technique

This tutorial at Shadow Logic creates an amazing fade effect to your image by actually resizing the image over and over again:

• Resizing fade effect

And one for your inner GIMP

Photo Excursions has a tutorial which produces a wonderful result in 5 easy steps. Can’t wait to try it out.

• Portrait tutorial for the GIMP

Enjoy.

Related posts

• See other posts from the What I learned about photography this week series

You might have seen it already but just in case: this is the latest Joe McNally video which captures his attempts at photographing the changing of the guard lightbulb atop of the Empire State Building. It’s very cool.

Duration: 7 mins 58 seconds

More great reading for you:

Do you “shoot” or “photograph”?

This one has had me thinking about how I “talk photography” over the last week or so. Jim M. Goldstein at JMG-Galleries dares you to stop saying “shoot” and instead use “photograph” or “take a photo”, something along those lines. It does make sense after all, it’s a camera, not a gun:

• Philosophy of photography: to “Shoot” or to “Photograph”?

What kind of photographer are you?

Paul Indigo at Beyond the Obvious defines two types of photographers, the observers and the controllers:

• There are two types of photographers

Rain, rain go away

Niels Henriksen at My Camera World offers hope and inspiration to all photographers facing wet weather:

• What to photograph on a rainy day

Make an HDR

Abduzeedo.com has an easy to follow tutorial to creating HDR images using Photomatix (I’ve got to get this program):

• How to create HDR Photos - HDR/Photomatix tutorial

What to buy …

And lastly, Photocritic.org has put together an excellent list on:

• The top 15 entry-level digital SLR cameras

Enjoy.

Related posts

• See other posts from the What I learned about photography this week series