PixelatedImage Blog

Tim Toole is a BIG FAT WINNER. He won through a random draw, but his cards are still nice and they clearly communicate who they are and what they do. Do yours?

At the beginning of the month I announced the BIG FAT BUSINESS CARD GIVEAWAY THING. The contest name was big. The prize package was also big. It was launched this month because November was the month VisionMongers was released. I got a new book, one of you got a bunch of stuff. Seemed only fair.

The winner, after pulling out mulitple entries, adding extra points for the top ten creative entries, and consulting the random-o-tron, was Tim Toole, which is particularly gratifying to me because like me, Tim was once a comedian.  He’s also a heck of a photographer and his images of the tooth fairy still make me chuckle. So Tim, I’ll drop you a line and arrange to get this stuff to you.

Honorable mention goes to Magda and Maciek for Most Creative entry, Toni from daily vignette for Biggest Attempted Suck-up, Scott Sporleder for Most eye-catching, and Matt Beatty for Most Sarcastic. Sadly, there are no prizes for these categories, only the knowledge that you made me smile

Tim’s got a nice box of goodies coming his way, thanks to all of you for playing.

I encourage you to all look through the Flickr pool, even if you didn’t enter. The take away from this is that business cards can be – and should be – as unique as the people, and businesses, they represent. But they are all pieces of visual communication, and all of them say something about – intentional or otherwise – about those same people and businesses. Consider taking a long look at the business card you use to represent you. Is it consistent with all your other marketing efforts? Is it creative? Is it congruent with who you are, and what your branding says you are? Is it well-designed or does it need work?

I bring this up because it’s so easy to get a stack of business cards done for $20.00 but can you afford to? This is communication, in much the same way as photography is communication. I’m not suggesting you go into debt to get great cards, just asking you to consider who you are, who your market is, and if your current cards are truly the best way to represent you to your market. Some of you have photographs on your cards; are they the best images you could be using? Do they open conversations or do they pigeon-hole you? Some of you have cards that are hard to read – why? Some of you have cards that you really like but that are poorly designed, have you considered how this establishes an expectation in your market that will affect what you can and can’t charge?

Such a small thing, but it’s often the first impression or the one that lingers the longest because it says things about you when you are not there to say those things yourself.

Congrats again to Tim, and huge thanks to OnOne software, Kelby Training, Evrium, Peachpit, Steven Pressfield, and Selena Maitreya for sponsoring the giveaway!

Yesterday a lot of people said a lot of very kind things and though I’ve never needed reminding how much I like y’all, well, yesterday just capped it. Your support and encouragement means a lot to me. So I’ve got a little something for you, just to say thank you. I’ve put together 16 of my favourite wallpaper-type images into one collection and I’m giving it away. Well, that’s not entirely true, I’m giving it away to you. Others that just stumble upon it in the store, well, they’ll pay a whopping $2 for it. But not you, you get it free. Because I love you.

At the bottom of this post there are links to put this into your cart and check out. So go ahead, put it into your cart, then use this coupon code: FREE1104 and you’ll be whisked through the free checkout line. Thanks again for being the one of the best communities on the internet – I’m honored you’ve thrown in your lot with me (UPDATE – Turns out there is a limit of 100 of these downloads a day, so CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD DIRECT FROM MY SERVER – please let me know if there are any further issues. Apologies for the oversight.)

This will come to you as a zipped folder. Unzip the folder and you’ll have a folder of 16 jpg images. Not sure how PC people do this, so if you’re good with this stuff, feel free to leave instructions in the comments. But Mac peeps should just be able to move all 16 images to their iPhoto library. Assuming you’ve got your photos to sync on the iphone, plug the iphone in and sync that sucker. Then choose the image you want and set it to desktop wallpaper. In theory this should all be pretty painless. If not, ask for help in the comments and I, or someone else, will try to help.

Sometime in the middle of this month my new book, VisionMongers, will hit shelves and the mailboxes of those that pre-ordered them on Amazon.com. So to make a splash, and to tell the world, I decided to up the ante on the whole “give away some free books” thing. So here’s more details on the BIG FAT Business Card Giveaway Thing.

What’s In It For Me?

Well, all I want is to tell the world about the book. The more people that know about the book, the more potential buyers, the greater the chance I can take my wife to dinner on Friday nights. That’s it.

What’s In It For You?

The winner of this Giveaway Thing, and there will be only one, will get a prize package of goodies that anyone wanting to make a life and a living in photography will make good use of. That package includes:

A Copy of Within The Frame, signed by me, Joe McNally, and Vincent Versace

A Copy of VisionMongers, signed.

PDF copies of all my current eBooks - Ten, Ten More, Drawing The Eye, and by the time we draw for this, Chasing The Look will also be out.

A signed copy of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, mandatory and inspiring reading for VisionMongers.

A copy of Selina Maitreya’s Mp3 series, The View From Here - a fantastic resource on entering, and staying in, the world of commercial photography.

A $200 credit with Peachit Press, to stock your shelf with learning resources.

A 1-year subscription to Kelby Training online resources. Some of the best teachers on the planet, all available 24/7 on your browser.

An Evrium Software FLUID GALLERIES PROFESSIONAL package. Show your work to the world.This is the software that drives my portfolio and I love it.

A full OnOne Software PlugIn Suite 4.5 package, courtesy of the fine folks at OnOne Software.

So, How Do You Enter to Win All This Prizey Goodness?

I’ve created a Flickr group HERE. You go there and post one image of your business card. It could be a scan or a photograph, it could be a drawing on a napkin that you photographed then scanned. Don’t have a business card? Carve one into a gourd or draw one in the sand. The top ten most creative images will get bonus points and entered twice, doubling your chances.

Don’t enter here.

Don’t email me your cards.

Just go to the Flickr group and post your image.

Your business card will have your phone number or email on it, and it’ll be clear, right? That’s how I’ll notify the winner. If the name, number, or email are illegible I’ll draw someone else’s name. The draw will take place at the end of November. Also, you should know that karmically you have a better chance of winning if you also buy my book which is available here on Amazon.com. Hey, I’m just saying… Good luck!

Too much time on my hands last night, playing with OnOne’s Plug-In Suite. Too much like play, not enough like work, and that’s always dangerous. This is me in Douz, Tunisia, enjoying some downtime, a cup of mint tea and a shisha with my buddy, the Legendary H who also gets the photo credit. I was chillin’ too much to take a photograph. No, the image has nothing to do with the post. But there are advantages to being your own publisher – freedom to be as random as I like, for one. And yes, I felt a little self-conscious wearing a turban but after a couple days you ease into it and start thinking about buying a used camel.

Thanks so much for the comments left yesterday. Some very encouraging things said, some very good ideas left. I always get nervous doing this kind of thing because I know some well-meaning lunatic’s going to encourage me to do something like more videos that I know are a great idea but I also know that admitting that is going to mean getting off my butt and actually  doing it. Anyways, no promises, but I do file these ideas away and they’re helpful to me as I create content for you. So, thanks. But most of all thanks for being awesome.

Ok, so get to the giveaway already, right? You bet!

Wacom has ponied up a fantastic Inutous 4, and I am sharing the love with the international crowd with 3 signed copies of my new book, VisionMongers – which I willl ship to you -by ludicrously expensive airmail -  when I get my first box of them. So, here’s the winners…

Intuous 4 Tablet, Medium
Marcus Taylor – invisiblegreen.com
Signed Copies of VisionMongers
Gerdez from Romania (#347)
Gordon Cahill from Australia(#341)
Gerrard Williams from the UK (#47)

Congrats to the winners! Please email me through the contact button at the top of the blog and give me your full name and mailing address and we’ll get you your stuff as soon as Canada Post and other involved parties can do so.

I’m really excited about getting these prizes to you. The Wacom tablet is really a step up and putting a little time into getting used to it, and customizing it for your workflow, can be a huge time saver. Not to mention the gains in image editing ability. I wish I could have given one to everyone. If you don’t have a Wacom tablet, find someone who does and spend some time with it – you’ll be amazed you waited so long.

Thanks too for the readers that jumped to my aid yesterday when I put out the call for some beta-readers for the fourth in my series of eBooks – you significantly reduced the moron-factor on this book by catching some really dumb mistakes, and a few quirks about transparencies in InDesign not exporting to PDF perfectly. So HUGE thank you to you!

I’ll announce a new giveaway soon, but I have to space these things out. In the meantime, go shoot something you love.

On Thursday the 22nd I attended a conference called Creative Mix Vancouver. It was the brainchild of my manager, Corwin Hiebert, and it was incredibly inspiring to me to see a room packed with creatives from an incredible cross-section of disciplines. We had writers and publishers, ad executives and musicians, video-game creators, film-makers, photographers, and a chef. Not to mention the fashion world, illustrators, and architects. And all of them talking about their process. It was incredible.

I tell you that for two reasons. One, to explain my unexpected absence here on Friday. I didn’t plan for that to happen, I just plain forgot. I get distracted easily and I think I thought I had something in the can and ready to go for Friday and I didn’t. Oops. Two, one of the recurrent themes at the conference was collaboration, and the notion of letting ideas into the world and into the hands and minds of other people to evolve and grow. You’ll see where I’m heading with that at the end of this post.

This is going to be a longer post. I want to update you on where things are at and where they’re going on the Pixelated Image Blog and I want to invite your participation in being part of its growth, because you’re a part of this community, even if you’re a lurker and never comment, and it’s fitting that you have a chance to be part of the growth of this thing.

So. As far as I can see from here, and it’s not far or clearly, I assure you, here’s where I think I’m heading with all this over the coming year.

As many of you have noticed, I’ve been busy. I have two passions that I bring to this blog; creating photographs and teaching others about the same. In an effort to learn InDesign I created my first eBook, TEN, two months ago and the response has blown me away. I decided to push my luck with another, TEN MORE, and it too has had an incredible reception. DRAWING THE EYE was released last week and I accidentally began working on a fourth and am almost finished it. I accidentally discovered that I love creating these. If no one ever bought these things I’d probably keep creating them because I enjoy the process and the creation of something new. The incredible response was never anticipated. So I have plans to do more. The comments I keep getting tell me the content is valuable. So while I’m making no promises, I’ve talked to a couple other photographers I love and respect, and we’ve got at least three potential collaborations in the pot right now.  I’m hoping to release those after the release of my fourth eBook, CHASING  THE LOOK, 10 Ways To Improve The Aesthetics of Your Photographs (left). I’ll give you some time to digest DRAWING THE EYE before I release this next one, then after CHASING THE LOOK I’m going to introduce you to Kevin Clark and Dave Delnea and do some collaborations with them. If the eBooks were songs, these would be duets. But I’ll space them out, I promise.

In the midst of all that my second print book will come out. VISIONMONGERS, Making a Life and Living in Photography (left) is at the printers now and should be out November 16, which means that’s when it ships from the publisher to Amazon. If you pre-ordered with Peachpit, you’re likely to get yours about the same time I see mine for the first time. If you pre-ordered with Amazon.com, you’ll see yours shortly after that. If you pre-ordered with Amazon.ca, or God-forbid Amazon.co.uk, well, you might as well find a comfy chair and put the kettle on, it’ll be a longer wait for you. But when VisionMongers comes out you’ll see some posts here about the business end of things. I won’t stop writing about creating photographs, but I’ll also be talking about the issues raised in the book, doing some related give-aways, and in general picking up a thread that I’ve discussed here in the past but neglected while I was writing this book so I wouldn’t get confused.

And speaking of Giveaways, I’ve got a few more in the pipe that I’m excited about. I do these because I love to give stuff away and because I like my readers. When I get a sponsor I always make a deal with them – if I get something, so does at least one of my readers. Be on the look out for some goodies from OnOne software soon. I just talked them into forking over some stuff, so I’ll announce that after I draw for the Wacom Intuos4 tablet. I’ve also got signed copies of VisionMongers, and signed copies of Steven Pressfield’s War of Art. In fact I think I’ll give away a 3-set that includes a signed copy of War of Art, a signed copy of VisionMongers, and a copy of Within The Frame signed by me, Joe McNally who wrote the foreword and Vincent Versace who wrote the afterword. Call me crazy. I’ll announce those later but I wanted you to know what’s coming down the pipe.

And that brings me to the last thing. The books, electronic or paper, are not replacing the content here on the blog. This is where I connect with you, share my latest thoughts and (mis)adventures, and enjoy the pleasure of a growing community- I wouldn’t trade it for anything. So this is where I open it to you. This is an invitation for you to collaborate with me and throw your best ideas at me and see what sticks. If you’ve got an idea about something you’d like me to write about or teach, an issue you’d like me to address, or a question you’ve been dying to ask – now’s a chance to get it out and make it known. If you’ve got an idea about the design of the blog, a feature you don’t see, or a photographer you’d love to see me interview, let me know. Basically I’m telling you I want you to have a hand in the direction of this blog. I’m not guaranteeing I’ll do all – or any – of what gets suggested, but the more voices I hear the more able I am to know why you come here, what you get out of it, and what you’d like to see more of.

And to encourage the participation of less vocal members of this community, I’m going to put a prize into the mix. I don’t even know what it is, but if I fail to come up with something more clever I’ll just sign a couple books and look through my closet and send something – anything – to keep you happy. I’ll pick one contributor to this conversation, might be a random choice, might be someone with a great idea, I’m not sure. But you deserve a shot at something for reading this far and contributing.

Thanks again. To all of you, from the more vocal people whom I now call my friends, to the lurkers who just come and listen quietly in the corners. It’s truly rare for an internet community – either a blog or a forum – to be so consistently blessed with such kind, fun, people, and somehow avoid the crazies. Thanks for being a part of all this. And for reading this whole post. Lord, this was long.

I’m going to make this short. If you do any localized work in Photoshop or Lightroom, you are missing out if you’re not using a tablet. I’m not exaggerating my case; you really need to try one, get past the initial awkwardness and discover the pressure-sensitivity goodness in PS and LR that can only be accessed with a tablet. Sure, you can use a mouse for most things, and you’re probably right to be a little suspicious of all these overly-enthusiastic tablet-users. Who knows, they might even be the same wierdos who eat sushi, listen to NPR, and insist the battle between Canon and Nikon is irrelevant. But even so, you owe it to yourself to try these. I use mine all the time in LR with the Adjustment Brush and in PS with masking and it gives me the ability to work on my images with more ease, control, and subtlety. I won’t go into the shortcuts possible in your workflow, but you get used to these things really fast, and if there’s a downside to them it’s that the mouse you now love will, in short order, begin to feel like a giant cumbersome ham in your hand.

And when I begged Wacom to show some lovin’ they didn’t blink and eye. So I’ve got a medium Wacom Intuos4 to give away. The only catch is that I can only offer it to residents of America or Canada. I know. Sorry. But here’s a small consolation. If you live outside the US or Canada, leave  a comment in the comments, along with the others , and indicate clearly which country you are from and I will draw 3 names and send you each a signed copy of VisionMongers when it comes out. It’s no Wacom tablet, but it’s something.

So what do you have to do to be considered eligible? Just leave a comment under this post. The last giveaway – the one for the Drobo – all I asked for was a simple sentence and I still got poems and sycophantic praise. So, this time I’m not going to hold you back. Poems, praise, limericks, heck – anything to catch my attention in a PG kind of way- and I’ll do a somewhat random draw with points given for creativity, in a couple weeks. Just be sure you leave a name and email address when you leave your comments. You foreigners, you know I love you – so you can play too – just be sure to let me know which country you’re from. And no cheating; if you pretend to be from Nova Scotia but give us a mailing address in The Gambia, the jig’s up.

Huge thanks to Wacom for the lovin’. I’ve got one of these for my desktop, one with my laptop, and another on my wife’s desk too. All Wacom’s tablets bring PS and LR functionality to a new level, but the Intuos is an amazing step up from the old Graphire I used to use. I know, I know, it’s not about the gear, Vision is Better, etc. But a great tool can make things easier, and when the technology stops being in the way, it’s a little easier to get where you’re going. Tablets do that for me. Wow, 4 paragraphs in, no sign of slowing down, and I said I’d try to make this short? I suck at brevity.

If you’re not familiar with the whole Wacom line, from their Bamboo to their gorgeous, truly lust-worthy 21″ Cintiq, you can find more about them HERE.

Alright, you know the drill. Good luck. *Updated October 26, Comments now closed. Winners announced tomorrow.

Just over a week ago we announced that in a fit of lovin’ for my readers, the fine folks at Data Robotics were giving away one DROBO. I waxed poetic and enthusiastic about how much I love my Drobo (I have two – an original USB model, and a current FW800 model, both sitting on my desk), mentioned how vulnerable our data is and how much better I sleep at night knowing my stuff is backed up so well. I invited you to leave a simple confession – I WANT A DROBO. And then 1053 nutty freeloaders came out of the woodwork with the requisite confession as well as poems, limericks, haiku, flattery, and plain old bribes I’ve had quite a few giveaways here and this was by far the craziest response. Well I’ve closed the comments, consulted the oracle at Random.org and I’m thrilled to announce the winner. Gale, from PaperWhimsy.com – drop me an email with your address and I’ll have your magic black-box of back-up goodness sent direct from DROBO. Congrats!

But wait! There’s more. Persistent bugger that I am, I asked the folks at Drobo if they’d give the rest of us a discount and they were more than happy to extend a $50 discount to all my readers. The discount code to use when checking out at Drobo.com is PIXELS. This will work for any Drobo or Drobo bundles (with drives) but not for the DroboPro.This coupon code is valid for 30 days and expires November 16th, 2009,

Congrats to Gale, HUGE thanks to Drobo, and also to you who played along and filled my comments box to bustin’. Have a great weekend.

When DROBO first came out I was hooked. All that redundant backup in a black box that’s as smart as it is sexy? Sign me up!

And since then I’ve had a Drobo, now two of them, sitting on my desk. My work comes into my main machine and is immediately backed up to Drobo. Drobo itself has all kinds of science-fictiony stuff going on under the hood that I don’t understand but I know this – my data is protected 24/7 and it’s a scalable storage solution, so when Drobo gets full I just go buy a larger HDD and pop it in. I know some folks whine about the proprietary nature of Drobo and would rather use other solutions, fine, but for me, Drobo gives piece of mind to my decidedly non-techy brain. It’s not my working drive, it’s my on-site backup, and I still have off-site back-ups too, but it does its job really well, it looks great on my desk, and my cats like sleeping on them. We all win.

And now you can win too! (How was that for a segue?) When I was at Photoshop World I asked my Drobo connections about sharing the love and they jumped on it faster than hands off a greased pig. So in the spirit of simplicity, we’ll make this one easy. If you want a drobo, you don’t have to engage in the usual sucking-up. Just leave a comment on this post that has (a) your name, (b) your email address, and (c) this confession: I WANT A DROBO. That is all. At a random date and time I will close the comments, launch Random.org in my browser and let it chose a number between 1 and the number of comments received. Then Drobo will ship you a new Firewire 800 Drobo. You’ll have to buy the drives yourself. Easy-peasy, right? Comments are open, go for it. May the most random person, with the most vulnerable data, win.

Huge thanks to Drobo both for letting me sleep at night and for sharing the love. If you have no idea what I’m babbling on about, check out Drobo on their website HERE.

Update, October 15. The contest is closed, the name is drawn. Look for an announcement on October 16.

My sponsors are awesome. One of the deals I’ve made with all of them at some point is that if I get something, so do my readers. Or at least one or two of you chosen completely randomly. When I left for India early last month I took my new Blackrapid Double Strap to test out, and Ron at Blackrapid said I could give one out too. For two-body shooting this Double Strap is great, and very comfortable. And I’m pleased to say that KarenJ, who was comment #50, and who tells me she’s stalking me, will get to test out her own DoubleStrap. Congrats, KarenJ!

Didn’t win? Well Blackrapid’s not the only sponsor that oozes generosity – DROBO is also putting out and I’ll give you more details on that tomorrow. This is a short post, the next couple days are full of me digging out from the pile that’s accumulated over the last month, and I have only so many hours of digging before the jetlag kicks my butt.

When I was in Seattle several weeks ago I spent an evening with the good folks at Blackrapid, makers of the R-strap. They plied me with local beer, sat me down on the couch and made me play twenty-questions. This is that interview, in 5 parts. You won’t be able to hear the questions really well, there were some sound issues. But I think I make up for it with lots of awkard moments and corny laughs and stuff. There’s a reason I now prefer to be behind the camera these days and not in front of it. Click here to go to the Blackrapid site and discover those reasons for yourself.

And while we’re on topic, be sure to enter to win a Blackrapid Double Strap. Read the post HERE and leave a comment. I’ll do a random draw when I am back from Vegas.