Gavin Gough and I officially start our 2012 Thaipusam workshop tonight, here in Penang. So yesterday met several of the families we have arraigned for our participants to follow and photograph during the festival. We also did a pre-workshop run through with the models we have secured for our participants to photograph.

We have found three lovely models, none of them are professional, but each one is beautiful in their own right. Not only were they beautiful on the outside, each had a something special on the inside as well and were a real joy to work with. I want to thank Victoria for bringing her skills as a makeup artist to play. (But Victoria, I think you had an easy job with such lovely ladies )

The young lady in the black outfit, called a kebaya nyonya, is Cindy Ong. I think I am going to take her home and give Jessie a big sister! Cindy not quite 18 years old is full of drama and is a natural at this modeling stuff. The next Jayshri Mennon or just Jay. Jay was not only a wonderful model but a huge help this week in prepping for this event. She has recruited most of her family as subjects for our workshop participants to document as they perform these important Hindu rituals. Thank you Jay. Speaking of Jay’s family, her sister Shri is making the orange sari look so beautiful. Between Cinday, Jay, Shri and Victoria how can we help not take a good picture?

The prep work for this event did not start yesterday, but months in advance. Sometimes I think people think all you have to do to make a successful workshop happen is just show up and teach. Far from it. Gavin and I have been working with the help of people here in Penang for close to a year to make this happen. We are excite to develop a unique and exciting workshop for our participant. Maybe in 2013 you can join us?

Many folks ask me what do I do for camera and gear insurance when I am on the road. In theory I have it covered by a very credible company. Though this theory has never been put to the test. (It has on the other hand cost me a lot in premiums.)

I joined the National Press Photographers Association or NPPA for just this reason – insurance. NPPA works with Hays Affinity to provide insurance for it’s members photographic equipment. It is not cheap, but it does cover your gear when you travel, that is if, and this is a big IF, you tell them in advance about every trip you take. That has been a mill stone around my neck that seems impossible to live up to. At least for this ADD photographer. There is no easy number to call and say, “Hey Mr Hays agent, I leave tomorrow for Outer Nowhereistan and will be back on the following Thursday. Is my gear covered?”  Instead, you have to log into their website and download the “Overseas Travel Addendum” fill it out and fax it or send it to an agent and hope for the best. Not very user friendly and not that easy to plan and get done prior to a trip. Plus, as with any insurance company you always need a current list of your gear on file with them and they will need to adjust your premiums to reflect that new gear.

Don’t do what I did.

Here is a lesson learned the hard way. I have not had anything lost or stolen for years. Oh, sure, I miss place my keys at home or I leave my wallet in my pants and then can’t find it the next day. I would venture to say that most folks can relate to this. But, the inevitable happens. Earlier this last year I bought with good hard earned money a Fujifilm X100, the much celebrated and much sought after retro digital range finder. A great camera. This past trip to the USA I used it to shoot some family photos of some friends while visiting them in the US. Somewhere between the photo shoot and packing to leave, the Camera has disappeared. Yes, that is right, my sweet, sexy little X100 has vanished. They only thing left is the charger and a cool lens hood. But, I am covered for theft, right? Nope. I would have been had I added the little guy to my insured list of gear. Unfortunately, it is the only item of gear not on the list. The only one! I am sick. But it is a lesson learned and will not happen again. Would it have been covered? Not sure, as I did not inform them of my travel plans.

The moral to the story is get your gear covered and keep your list updated. When was the last time you updated your gear list? GO DO IT NOW!

Update: I have found my camera. I had put it in the glove box of my sister-in-laws car. Apparently, so it wouldn’t get stolen or so I wouldn’t loose it when we went into a restaurant for dinner. It was a forgetful and embarrassing thing to have happen. Yet, I have decided to post this story anyway. The lessons still remain and the questions still need to be asked:

1. Are you insured?
2. Is your gear list up to date?
3. What is your insurer’s policies on travel?

Get busy, you have a lot of work to do!

In this episode of Depth of Field I speak with Keith about making a living in hard times. What's the secret? He had his best year last year and in a small town like Temple, Texas! I chose Keith for this interview for just this reason, I wanted folks to hear the story of a working photographer, not unlike themselves. Sometimes our guests can seem bigger than life and I listeners might feel they are almost surreal. Not Keith, he works hard and make a great living and like all my guest, is a great person at the core. Hmmm... maybe there is a theme here?

Visit Keith's website HERE

Follow him on Facebook HERE.

Below are some of the sites that I refer to in the video.

KeepYourCopyrights.org

law.justanswer.com

Photo Editor Rob Haggart, the former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside Magazine, and editor of the “A Photo Editor” Website not only gives his readers a great explanation of contractual terms and usage, he gives them a sample contract to uses and tweak HERE. His stuff is gold!

I have known Mitch for six or seven years. We first met online on the Travel Photography Network. He struck me then brash and bold. I now realize what I had mistaken for brash and bold was self confidants and an overabundance of talent.

You have to visit Mitch’s gallery HERE and visit his blog HERE. Mitch is represented by both Getty and Corbis. He is the author of six ebooks and you can find them HERE. Enjoy this interview with my friend Mitchell Kanashkevich.

Vlog #7 Dining Room Shoot and a Case Study of Geotagging Photos from Matt Brandon on Vimeo.

So here is Vlog # 7. Moving right along. This week I wax eloquently…ok scratch that, I just ramble and tell you a story about how I did a short photo session in my dining room with my daughter. It’s a dad thing! Plus, I tell you about how geotagging  photos can make you money!

Below are the links to the software in today’s video. I am pretty certain all these are available for both the iPhone as well as the Android.

Gps4Cam

Geotag Photos

Easy Release

I also talk about the Blue Snowball mic.

Please take a moment and visit our sponsors for this workshop: Phottix, X-Rite ,Spider Belt Camera holster, LensBaby and f-Stop Bags

Feel like joining us? Visit the registration page for more info. Take a moment to browse some of the images from this year’s (2011) Thaipusam and you can get a taste at what you will be photographing on this workshop.

SX-70, Sun 660, expired type 779, Orange County, CA.

Today’s guest post is by Stephanie Watkins. Stephanie has a creative eye and an artist spirit and it shows though in her work. I met Steph through her husband Nate, who you can see lurking in the back of my latest Vlog post (vlog #6).  Her Polaroid work is stunning and I wanted to give it a platform. I miss film and have found digital lacking something tactile in it. Enjoy these images and welcome Stephanie to the Digital Trekker.

My love affair with photography started four years ago when I bought my first DSLR. I was obsessed with my dreamy new camera and could not put it down. And as any new photographer usually does, my camera stayed on the ‘green box’ and I shot mostly flowers and my parent’s dogs.  With the combination of many long nights spent on Flickr and frequent trips to the local camera store, I became aware of another side of photography, some weird thing called ‘analogue’ and ‘film.’ Now film itself was not something all together foreign to me, but in this digital age, I did not see it as anything of importance. Who needed film or a medium format camera when I had a DSLR? Mind you, I had no idea how to properly use the camera, but I had it, and that’s all that mattered. Little did I know that I also had another camera back in my closest that would   end up changing by life and the way I viewed art and photography as a whole.

Someone had given me a brand new Polaroid Onestep a while back. It was a great novelty gift, but I really did not think much about it. But after playing around with my DSLR, I became more intrigued by my Polaroid camera and started using it. The more I used it, the more I discovered a whole other world of photography. That Onestep was my gateway drug to more analogue cameras. I soon became obsessed! I bought old Polaroid Land Cameras, SX-70 cameras, medium format cameras, and even plastic cameras, anything that took film I wanted. And the more I worked with film, the more I learned about photography in general. Thanks to film speed, I quickly understood the importance of ISO. And thanks to many ruined rolls of film, I figured out shutter speed and aperture too. Film rounded me as a photographer and made me more of an artist. The more Polaroids I took and the more rolls of film I developed, my breadth of understanding and love of photography grew and grew.

There is something so wonderful and special about film photography. Maybe it’s the fact that every picture you take really means something. Film is so expensive these days, so you take your shots carefully. Maybe it’s the wonder of holding a tangible Polaroid picture that developed right before your eyes. It’s instant gratification. Or maybe it’s the magic of peeling apart some pack film to see an image that looks even better then the real thing. Over the past few years, my relationship with photography has changed and grown in so many ways and has taken me all over the world. Yes, I still use digital and have even upgraded my gear. But using and working with film, will always have a very special place in my heart and will keep my love affair with photography burning strong.

See more of Stephanie Watkins work at her flickr stream HERE.

Land Camera 103, expired ID-UV from '06, along highway 10, CA.

Countdown 70, expired ID-UV from '02, Cabazon, CA.

Land Camera 440, expired type 689, Lone Pine, CA.

Vlog #6 from Matt Brandon on Vimeo.

Something new. Ok, it isn’t really new, I have done five other video blog post in the past. But I’ve never recorded any of them with the 5D MKII. So this is new. In this video I take a look at the Drobo storage device and how it failed. In this video I describe my work flow and the software I used to recover my data how to prevent this nightmare from happening in the future.

After you view the vlog you might be interested in the links below. I would love to hear from you whether you like this format or not. In some way it was easier for me than writing. So you might be seeing more… lets see.

Links to the product in the vlog:

Drobo 4 Bay

Data Rescue 3

Alsoft's Disk Warrior 4

Mediasonic 4 Bay USB 2.0

A fisherman pulls in an empty net off the shores of Batu Ferringhi.

I am working on a project for a NGO that is focusing on the peoples of Africa and Asia’s coastal waters. In short, we are looking at issues of over fishing, climate change and natural disasters like the Acheh tsunami and how these factors effect the livelihood of the coastal people. This is from today’s shoot right here in my backyard.

83 year old fisherman, Ariffin pulls a horseshoe crab from his net.

Empty nets are frequent these days.

Becasue the fishing is so bad, Ariffin and his family suppliment their income by transporting Arab tourist to remote beaches to picnic.