Hack Photo

Just found a pretty interesting article on PhotoCritic.org on why the author prefers a 3:2 proportion for his images.

The argument is that a 3:2 proportion makes for a photo that looks like, well, a photo. To me that’s a reason to stay away from 3:2 whenever possible. Digital imaging makes it easy to print in almost any size, and I like that freedom.

Although I do find myself coming back to certain proportions more than others. Square as always been a popular print proportion for me. And for some reason 12×24″ prints work well for me, but it’s the size not the proportion. A 4×8″ doesn’t have the same effect.

Canon released a new version of the EOS 30d firmware. It’s available from their site.

The new firmware fixes a bug where the camera misreports how many shots are remaining in continuous mode and adds a semi gloss paper option for direct printing.

This is from about 18 months ago, but I still like it. We took a quick trip up to Austin and ran out to the hike and bike trails on Town Lake to take some pictures.

Gallery Wraps are a very popular way to mount photographs. Problem is they are usually very expensive, and most places don’t print them smaller than 8×10. I wanted a series of gallery wraps on my wall, but with smaller images. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past few months I’ve been working on an online proofing and ordering system for my web site. Now that it’s at a nearly completed state I’ve decided to share it as either a free Lite version or a commercial Pro version. The only current limitations to the Lite version is a max of 10 albums and 100 images per album, plus the Pro version adds the ability to watermark images as they are uploaded.

The program is called ProofBuddy and requires PHP and MySQL installed on your web server. An integrated shopping cart allows you to sell your images to your clients online and you can optionally link to PayPal to handle payments.

This screen is the Dashboard, the first screen you see after logging in. Across the top is a two layered tab bar that will quickly take you to any section of the program. The quick task icons give you a way to perform the most common tasks easily. To the right of the quick task icons is a window giving you a quick glance into your album statistics. And the bottom contains news from an RSS feed so that you’re always up to date with ProofBuddy developments.

The Buster Brown No. 2A camera was made by the Ansco Company of Binghamton, New York and is part of a series of cameras – the No. 2, No. 2A, No. 2C, and No. 3. The “A” model takes 6 exposures of 2.25×3.24 inches while the “B” model took either 10 or 12 pictures per roll.

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Ok, I’m pretty sure this template is for a TAP folio. I bought the folio a long time ago from a store that sells mostly TAP album stuff, but pretty much every company makes one similar to this. Either way, the center panel is 11.1″ wide by 13.2″ tall with a 2 image wing on each side for a total of 8 vertical 4×6 openings.

These 2 Photoshop files will allow you to insert images under the two included layers to do a mock up of the folio. I’m adding a sample album / folio section to my web site and didn’t like how they looked actually photographed so I made this to use for the online sample.
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Ok, this is pretty cool. The GorillaPod tripod will wrap around pretty much anything and hold your camera up. Sure, I probably wouldn’t put a full-sized camera on it, but the Joby website mentions a SLR and Pro version.

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In 1998 Frederic Bonn and Zoe Deleu found a few photographs on a street in Paris. The photographs were scanned and put online starting what would become a growing collection that as of today contains 572 images of nameless subjects.

I’ve lived in Houston for a little over 5 years and just heard about this park a few weeks ago. It’s near to the Memorial Park area, and is probably part of the same system. Odd feeling walking through the woods and hearing Houston traffic.

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