Blake High School Lighting Seminar

I spent another great afternoon with some excellent students at Blake High School. This is such a great opportunity for me to give back what was given to me by so many great photographers when I was younger. I owe so much to people that would take the time to share their passion for photography with me. I think this should be part of every photographers life, giving back to the next generation of photographers.

I spent my time talking about the Nikon CLS system and how using the technology we have now can really foster a sense of play with the light. It is very freeing. I come from a very formal background in lighting and being able to experiment and "play" with light is such a delight. I can't help but have fun with all the possibilities.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

Aperture

I have been a die hard Adobe Bridge person ever since I started photographing in RAW. That wasn't too long after I went digital. I liked the speed of doing things, ability to create presets for common toning issues and the freedom to file in any way I wanted.

When I switched back to Macintosh after years working with PC's I bought a copy of Aperture. I thought that it might be useful for organizing and could potentially make my digital life easier.

Well, I played a bit with Aperture here and there for a long while. I loved the interface, but couldn't get over not having ultimate control over file locations. I also had some big concerns about processing speed and having to hand tone each image.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then... Aperture has made giant leaps forward and has made me a believer. I have moved all of my image archives into Aperture. Roughly 40,000 images to date.

What made this possible? First, I love to learn and I stumbled on an online course for Aperture that really got me started thinking about a better way to use that system to my advantage. Also, after a hard drive failure on my RAID I did a great deal of scrambling to re-back up a ton of data. That in itself is a huge process. On top of that I am constantly looking for images in my archive and finding a particular one can be quite frustrating if you don't have the number.

Aperture is opening a much better door for me in organizing, key wording, accessing, uploading and management. I have also found a great affection for Photoshop "Round-Tripping," a process where you open an image in the aperture library in photoshop for specific edits that cannot be done from within the main ap. Having the image tied to the original, matching keywords and maintaining continuity without ever harming the master image is solid gold in my book.

Yes, there has been a learning curve. As I mentioned, I like to learn, so that's not a problem

iPhone Spam Solution

When I first got my iPhone I was so excited about having my entire world in one place. My world runs pretty fast and

keeping up with all the details can be a dizzying task for me. My wife is very wise "I'm just glad technology has finally caught up to the speed of your life." She is right. It has streamlined my world a great deal and on top of it all, it's beautiful and elegant, just like everything Mac. Mine is slowly getting packed to the ceiling with images, slideshows and audiobooks. (yes, I know I'm a bit of a nerd...)

The one let down for me was having to filter my mail manually. I get a ton of spam and the mail filter on my MacBook Pro handles it quite well. There isn't a filter on the iPhone. That made for a lot of deleting in my life.

Somewhere I received a wonderful suggestion. "Get a Gmail account and use it to filter the iPhone's mail."

Sheer genius! I've been running like this for a week now and I'm very impressed with Gmail's filtering capabilities. I set the Gmail account up to check my other mail boxes and filter them before sending them to my phone. Excellent.

Real People. Really Remarkable Lives.: The Fear of Failure Drives Success?

Real People. Really Remarkable Lives.: The Fear of Failure Drives Success?

This is an amazing article. David Jay from OSP pointed me in this direction from his blog and I had to pass it on.

I grew up pretty poor. We always ate, but there was always a sense that we didn't really have enough to get by each month. i know that experience has dirven me a great deal in how I approach life.
I love to save money and hide it away. I'm always driven to work harder and acheive more. I hate to waste. I've always believed fear was only a bad thing. Maybe it's good in some controlled doses... I'll have to check my perscription.

Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Contest

Home - Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Contest

This looks like a great way for a young photographer to get a good start in their career. This is the first year Microsoft has taken on this contest. For someone right out of high school or in college this could be the big push you need to get things really rolling. $20,000 buys a lot of camera gear and could be great money to start a busniess or fund a long term special project.

Tampa Open Source Photo Road Trip

Last night was awesome. Tampa, Orlando and Miami area photographers from Pictage gathered for an awesome night. We shared ideas, swapped stories, shot together and stretched each other creatively. I especially enjoyed getting some to the Open Source Photo people together. This is an amazing and talented bunch. Here are a a handful of selects from the evening.

Reading Reading Reading

I read a lot. I mean A LOT. It's kind of funny that I had to graduate from college before I realized that I love learning. Just a short time ago I diswcovered audio books. Now I am usually listening to a book on my ipod and then reading an actual

book as well. It's a nice way to keep new informationgoing into my brain.

I just finished "The Big Moo" by Seth Godin. Awesome book. I've already listened to it twice. It's a great way to get thinking about change and innovation in my life. Last week while I was discussing the book with a student at my church she reminded me that I needed to re-read "The Dream giver" by Bruce Wilkinson. I will start that tonight. Another fantastic book!

Strangely enough I recently found a stuffed cow on my desk. Thank you to my Big Moo supporter who ever you are.

By the way, pray for David Jay, he is in Brazil on a mission trip to bring water purification into the villages in the rainforest. Very cool. Hopefully his luggage with his malaria medecin catches up with him soon

One Step Ahead

Last night was awesome. I went over to Orlando to be at the first night of Gary Fong's "One Step Ahead Tour." It was really a very cool night. I learned a lot and I met some great people. I ran into some very old friends who I haven't seen in years and had a chance to catch up a little and I met some new friends who I met through Open Source Photo. I was glad to meet some people whos work I admire and get to spend some time learning with them.

 

I also met a handful of up and coming photographers that are going to be great for our industry. We need more honest, hard working people with great vision and passion. I guess every industry needs that.

 

I'm in the process of implementing some of the new ideas I picked up after an evening with Gary. I'm looking at this as a fresh start in a lot of ways. Gary's process is very simple and that is a beautiful thing in itself. I was glad to hear a number of the things I am already doing on his list - blogging (hey, I'm doing that now), collages, web slideshows, treating clients as friends and giving them the best treatment possible because they are friends, etc. I was also somewhat freed to go with my heart on some issues, like get rid of time limitations as part of the creative fees.

 

Now it is time to let some more creative ideas start to gel in my brain. That's going to sleep to dream....

 

Sheer Joy

I remember when I first started shooting weddings (my junior year of high school) and how all the photographers I knew talked about shooting weddings like they were a huge pressure cooker designed to deep fry photographers. They thought I was naive, maybe I was. Maybe I still am.

I really love doing this. What better job description can there be for a photographer and a believer. I get to share one of the most important days with people who are in love. I get to participate in creating memories that will last a lifetime and beyond. Grandchildren will look at my photographs as they hear the story of the day their parents' parents started their lives together.

I've been looking at some of my archive images and remembering so many different weddings lately. God has belssed me so abudantly with this profession, this gift. I consider what I do to be sheer joy.

Blessed

Well, life is good. That's all I can say. I have my ups and downs like everyone else, but I am blessed in both cases.

I'm kind of a research hound. I love to learn. I especially love to learn when no one is telling me to do it. I've been doing a lot of reading about wedding photographers lately. I've been visiting other photogrpaher's websites, reading blogs and journals etc. One of the coolest things I've found out there is that I'm not alone in how I approach my shooting. I have found some other photographers who seem to integrate their faith into their work and lives.

Opensource photo has been one place that I've seen this in a number of people. I love to know that there are other people who are out there honoring God with what they do as photographers. If you are one of them, thank you!

All Hiz,

Michael J. McCrystal