The other day had the pleasure of chatting with Brian Hirschy and Jamin York of Plateau Photo Tours about the Tibet workshop this coming March and April.  We talked for about 45 minutes and covered almost every aspect of this tour,  from our transportation, the altitude, where we will be sleeping to the things that we will be photographing. This trip has been referred to many times as a”bucket list” trip.  If you don’t know, a bucket list is a list you make to complete before you die. In other words, this is a trip that you don’t want to miss.  I could go on talking about what we talked about but that would be silly, since we recorded it. It is best if you just listen to the interview yourself, so I’ll shut up and you can do just that. Just click on the link below.  We still have a few spaces available though it is selling out.

For more information on this trip visit this LINK.

We also would like to encourage you to visit our sponsors for this trip. My very good friends at Think Tank Photo and Black Rapid Strap.

Here are a few reminders of that trip.

Jamin York, the Tour Manager shooting the Tashilhunpo Monastery.

Lighting butter candles in Lhasa, Tibet

The old fort overlooking Shigatse.

I love PhotoShelter and I think you will too. These folks have a love affair with photographers. Really, they love us and when we do well, they do well. Sort of a symbiotic thing. They provide photographers with valuable services for working photographers like a photo website or and online galleries that can be branded with your current website (see mine here). They provide you with handy image archives that give you and your client access to these images while on the road (I’ve used that more than once or twice!). They are always producing the best resources for us to be better at our craft and our business. They produce ebooks by the dozens, interviews both in print (see my interview here) and in video. They make handbooks to help you in business and marketing your work. Most of these resources, like today’s, are absolutely free… as in take it and run, no cost… FREE!

PhotoShelter just launched a new Photo Business Bootcamp. The Bootcamp is a 5-week free email series for photographers and has 40+ curated interviews and tutorials from the most respected photography and industry experts in the business (ie: Ami Vitale, Brian Smith, & David Burnett). The Bootcamp includes courses on how to find inspiration, grow your photography business, improve your website, master online marketing, and sell your photos.

Registration is free and photographers can sign up directly HERE.  Why are you still here?

I am tickled pink to be able to announce the new Craft and Vision Community that David duChemin and the fine folks at Craft and Vision have been inspired to create.  I am excited, partly because I am intimately involved in one particular aspect of the Craft and Vision Community and that is the podcast. Every month David and I will be hosting a podcast that will be filled with discussions and interviews as well as an image critique. Each month we create an assignment asked listeners to submit an image from that assignment for critique. David and I will pick an image and will discuss it using principles from his upcoming book Photographically Speaking.

This is a community that will develop over time and deepen. Till Sept 30th you can join the community for a yearly subscription of only $89. After that the price will go up. There really isn’t a price you can put for inspiration and creativity that will last a lifetime.  I hope to see you in the Craft and Vision Community.

I am back home after a great, but rather wet, trip to the Philippines. It rained almost every day. But, the time with my in-laws was wonderful and the time spent with my wife and daughter even more so. As you know from the previous post, I purposefully left my DSLRs at home and only took my new Fuji X100. I figured, if I forced myself to be reliant on it for the week that I was gone I would get to know it better. I think that happened. Plus on the last day, I found Fuji released a Firmware update. I can’t tell you how good the firmware update was, as I didn’t know the camera well enough to make a comparison. I do notice an extra focus box in the middle of the screen that was not there prior to the release. Not sure yet what that is all about. As I said, I found the release on my last day, so I haven’t even had time to play with it as yet.

Once back, I had to put my nose to the proverbial grindstone and produce a presentation to accompany the class I am teaching in Cambodia. I will be teaching Soundslides Pro to the participants. I used my images that I am collecting from the X100 for the show. This will give a clear example of what the X100 can do. Each image has the EXIF data in the caption, You can click the caption button for viewing it, for those that want to geek out. (Better to do that in the full screen option.) Again, as in the previous post, I did all the post processing in Lightroom as I would with any other of my photography. So, no, this is not what it looked like coming out of the camera. I hope you enjoy.

Here is an html version for the iPad and iPhone users.

Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers in Tahrir Square, Egypt. Photo by Nevine Zaki

I have had people come up to me or write to me and say something like, “Wow! Visual Peacemaking – that’s so cool…what is it?” It’s as if there is a ring of truth in the term “visual peacemaking” but they can’t quite see how it might work. I’ve got news for you; I think that’s kinda where many of us are so let me help.

Visual Peacemaking is really quite simple in some ways. One of the best examples of it happened this past week in Egypt. Nevine Zaki (@NevineZaki) tweeted a scene she photographed last Wednesday of Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers in Tahrir Square. It is iconic in many ways and a prime example of what we mean when we say visual peacemaking. She could have let that moment slide and only focus on the brutality everyone else was photographing at that moment. But she didn’t. She chose to show something out of the ordinary and amazing that drew people together rather than kindling more hatred and violence. She showed the world, visual people pursuing peace. For this aspect of visual peacemaking, her image should be its poster child! more »

I am tickled pink to announce that I have been asked to write for the ProPhoto Coalition website. PPC and it’s big sister ProVideo Coalition are websites that cater to pro and serious photographers/videographers with news, tips, how-tos, gear reviews and more. ProVideo Coalition has been around for a while and has a proven track record with a large and loyal readership. ProPhoto Coalition is still a fledgling of sorts, but we have high hopes for it and I want to make sure you are a part of it. I am in good company at PPC with names like Bruce Dorn a long time pro-shooter who’s a true pioneer in HDSLR work (I so want to get my hands on his iDC System Zero!) Tom Bol who is a regular contributor to Digital Photo Magazine, Dan Carr and Tony Donaldson and others. How I got in with this lot, I’ll never know. I must have someone fooled! So, I hope you will meet me over at prophotocoalition.com and see what all the excitement is about.

It is going to be quiet around here this week. I am taking Alou and Jessie and hopping over to Vietnam for a week of R & R. We are going to spend a few days at the colorful city of Hoi An on the coast, then fly up to Hanoi for two nights then over to Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon. I’m taking two 5D MKII bodies. With only  three lenses; the 70-200mm f/2.8, 16-35mm f/2.8 and my trusty 50mm f/1.2 all this and my new Savinelli Roma 802 pipe and a wonderful W.O. Larsen’s blend called 1864. All of this is packed in my nifty new Think Tank Retrospective 30. I’ll try to post a few highlights along the way if I can. But I am not promising anything as this is suppose to be family time.

Hope you had a great Christmas and you didn’t eat too much. I certainly did. As we say in Texas, “I am as full as a tick.” I hope you have a great New Years and don’t party too much. But if you do, give the keys to someone else!

I just finished my first ever Introduction to Photography course here in Penang this morning. I had eight students with varied experience, all gather at my house around my dining table for a look into how to get the best out of their cameras. I must say, three hours seemed more like three minutes. But with the help of a snazzy (I must say) Keynote presentation, we were able to stay on task yet answer most of the questions and still have some time left for some practical work. I had wanted to take everyone to the beach to shoot, but it rained rather hard here this morning. So, when it stopped for a few minutes, we ran into the road in front of my house and shot some mini-assignments. The aim was not to take pictures of the beach, but to practice what we covered in class. So we were still able to accomplish that. In fact, I must say I was quite impressed with the images they came up with right on my road. It just goes to show, a good photo is made not taken.

In the three short hours we were able to cover the basics:

1. how to hold your camera
2. button and dials
3. the exposure triangle
4. aperture (depth of field)
5. shutter speed (motion)
6. ISO
7. exposure compensation
8. basic composition:
   • rule of thirds
   • uses of lines
   • negative space
9. plus a myriad of trick and tips

The students seemed pleased. One student wrote,

“Thanks! I love the course. I learned a lot about the artistry rather than just aperture/shutter speed etc…”

If you’re a new photographer or know someone that would have benefited from this three hour introduction but missed it, don’t fret! I’m running the same course this Wednesday, December 15th from 9am till 12pm. There are still plenty of spaces for this Wednesday’s course. Just email or call me (+60 164908704) for information or registration. It is a great value for only RM 150 or $47.  Join the fun!

I am excited to announce Phottix, makers of professional photo accessories have join the Digital Trekker as sponsors. I have come to really appreciate the folks at Phottix. Not only do they make some innovative gear, (check out their wired and wireless remote for a start!) they also understand the needs of photographers in this day and age. Like Think Tank Photo, BlackRapid and the rest of my sponsors, Phottix has an attention to detail and quality that sets them apart. So, join me in welcoming Phottix to The Digital Trekker.

This week I had fun catching up with my flickr account. I had not added photo to flickr in months, maybe in over a year. What got me back to flickr was a small web based application that I added to my site. You may notice the “Map” link in the menu bar at the top of the blog. The map is made by trippermap.com, it feeds off of my flickr feed and puts any geo-coded photos in your flickr account on a customizable map for your readers to browse. I found it easy to use and configure. It even displays route lines of your trips. One caution however, you have to make sure your camera’s date is set correct, otherwise things could get messy. Trippermap reads the EXIF data on your images and then puts your photos in order by date and time, connecting them and thus creating your routes. They provide HTML codes to embed you map as I did on my page above and in the blog post. The only downside I see about this service at this time is the maps are Flash. So, if you want to view it on an iPhone or iPad, forget it. But, over all I find it a nice add-on to my site.

Speaking of apps; if you have an iPhone you have to check out a simple little app called Instagram. It is a very simple photo application that has a handful of presets and boarder. You either shoot a new image or load a photo from your iPhone gallery and then run it through a preset you select. The outcome is very creative. The app is not only a photo application but a social networking tool as well. You can follow other Instagram users or post your images on flicker, Twitter, FaceBook or other social networks available in the app. Give it a try.