PixelatedImage Blog

There’s an interesting post and discussion on Scott Kelby’s blog entitled: Air Travel Just Got Worse For Photographers - check it out.

Additionally, Lexar.com just published my most recent article in the Lessons Learned on Assignment series - this one is about your first assignment. Unfortunately the initial posting begins my article about half-way through - very wierd. So for now, if you want to read it, you can read it HERE. If you like my articles you can find many of them posted in links on the left side of this page, starting with STARTING OUT and then moving on to the Lexar series and some of my TPN articles. There’s plenty there, folks; if you aren’t sick of me yet you’re taking a real chance by reading all this stuff at once. Pace yourself.

A few images from the Kansas City McBride wedding can be found HERE.

The dates for the 2008 Lumen Dei Tour and Workshop have just been announced. Or they will be. In fact, consider THIS that announcement.

In almosty exactly one year from now - from September 15 to 27, 2008 - seven to eight participants will travel with David duChemin and Matt Brandon to Kashmir in Northern India.

Total cost is USD 3200.00 from Delhi and that includes pretty much everything including accommodations, meals, internal flights, etc.

If you’ve always wanted to see and photograph Kashmir - a place known as Paradise on Earth - and to learn how to shoot the spirit of a place and her people from two accomplished photographers, this is an extraordinary opportunity.

A few highlights - shooting in the chaotic streets of Old Delhi, living on a houseboat on Lake Dal in Srinagar, photographing floating vegetable markets and the Venice-like back waterways from a classic Shikara, trekking in the Himalaya (with most of your gear on ponies) and meeting and photographing the nomadic Gujjar shepherd people. Add some excellent theoretical and technical teaching, one on one time with instructors, image critiques, and some free swag from our sponsors. Your leaders are competent, generous, and alot of fun. You will remember this trip for the rest of your life.

More details can be found on the LUMEN DEI SITE.

If you are interested in applying please first read through the Lumen Dei site, then send an email and we will get an application package to you.

After months of shuffling around and playing with dates and details, we are very close to announcing the details of LUMEN DEI 2008. We will be back in Kashmir, living on a houseboat, shooting the old city of Srinagar, and our trek this year is longer. Matt Brandon and I are particularily excited about the tour for this coming year. Check back here in a week, or Lumen-Dei.com for more details. If you are really eager and not yet on the mailing list, leave a comment here and I will make sure you’re among the first to know when details are announced.

There will be 7-8 spots in this year’s course - if you want one you’ll need to get an application in fast, but please be warned acceptance is not primarily based on a first-come first-served basis, but at the discretion of the Lumen Dei Photo Workshop leaders. On your marks, get set, wait….

An excellent article on Photopreneur about serving your clients and keeping them happy. Learn this. Love it. Live it.

Click HERE.

Jodhpur, India. January 2006

Jodhpur is known as “the blue city” for the ubiquitous blue walls. The walls, predominantly washed with various shades of cobalt blue in the old city, lend Jodhpur a fairy-tale feel and the back alleys are a riot of blues, greens, and ambers. They are also home to an astonishing density of bicycles and scooters, which, it can only be assumed, multiply in the dark corners through mechanical mitosis. Overhead and always looming is the Mehrangarh fort, the hill fortress that both guards and dwarfs the town.

I shot this in the early hours of the morning. Dawn was only just beginning to break and the golden light of streetlamps was bathing everything in gold. It was a magical morning - my last for a couple days, as later this day I came down with a fever and went to bed whining and bitching about how much my throat hurt, etc., etc.

I had left the havelli without my tripod but found a handmade wooden ladder with four legs that nearly passed as stable and shot this little intersection of alleys until the dawn broke. Bicycles began to whiz past, and the day grew louder as the warrens and alley came to life.

It’s often about that time when I’m feeling about to give up and move on that something magical happens. Or when I am looking too hard. Almost any time other than the moments during which I am looking and waiting. This time a woman in red walked up the steps to the temple, wrapped her head and walked through the door.

This woman seemed to me a spectre, she moved softly and quietly, came from nowhere and vanished. The slow shutter speed necessitated by the low light gave me the effect I needed but didn’t have the time to be aware of.I shot about 6 frames hoping something captured the moment the way I’d seen it.

EXIF: Canon 5D, 17-40/4.0L at 1/5sec and f/9.0. ISO 800

One of the best ways to get creative juices flowing is to increase your inputs. Creativity is essentially the juxtaposition of two or more old ideas to create new ones. So if you’re in a funk, increase the inputs. Go read a magazine, explore a new place, listen to new voices.

If you’re a portrait shooter and looking for new inputs, I have some homework for you. Spend some time with the following two books:

1. Monkey Portraits, Jill Greenberg.
Jill has a particular look and style and in this book it shines through with amazing clarity. If you want inspiration on capturing personality in your images, look no further. Most of you will think I’m joking or disregard this suggestion. The few of you that take me seriously will benefit - go to Chapters or Barnes and Noble and spend some time with it.

2. Karsh: A Biography in Images.
Or anything profiling the work of Karsh. I cut my teeth on Yousuf Karsh’s work. He was a remarkable man and his portraiture is classic, simple, and powerful. (There is a new compilation of his work coming out this year: Yousef Karsh: Industrial Images. Should be out anytime now.)

Scott Kelby just posted this on his blog this morning:

I just got my copy of David duChemin’s new limited edition coffee table phtography book, “The Pixelated Image”
and it’s just absolutely wonderful. He’s got some just fascinating
images, and the book is beautifully done (it’s a collector’s edition
type of book).

When Scott got his book he sent me a quick email saying this:

It absolutely ROCKS!!!!! A bunch of us at NAPP HQ were standing around looking at the book this week, and it was nothing but oooohhss, and aaaahhhs all around.

So if you’ve been sitting on the fence about ordering my limited edition book, perhaps thinking you wouldn’t order one until someone like Scott Kelby weighs in on it - now’s your chance. Once this book is sold out, there will be no more. Ever. (Thank you, Scott, for the really kind and encouraging words)

More info HERE

Photopreneur posted THIS ARTICLE yesterday - Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Photographer?

I’m flying to Kansas City to shoot a wedding this week, so I have wedding stuff on my mind - that’s when I stumbed across this blog with some inspiring wedding photography - JESSICA CLAIRE. Photography like this inspires me enough to be willing to shoot the occasional wedding. Most people that know me know that I’d rather shoot in a conflict zone than shoot weddings, but with images like this I’m inclined to rethink the whole thing. Here’s another one I love: MATT ADCOCK

Even if you never shoot weddings, this is photography with excellence and should inspire you to think differently or motivate you to images that are both aesthetically gorgeous and emotionally powerful.

Here’s a last link - FLASHFLAVOR.COM - the images on here are illustrative of some incredible flash techniques - lots of good stuff in here and some incredible images. I find lately that I resonate with images that are far from my own style. I feel a real sense of wonder when I look at images that are so different; that renewed sense of "how did they do that?". Even if I never move in that direction, the inspiration is unstoppable.