And I am prouder of this one than all three of the others put together. I think it out-WTFs Within The Frame and I’m hoping will be more actual teaching on the craft of photography than you’ve seen from me to date. What y’all think of it remains to be seen, but I’m prouder than punch. In the coming weeks, I think as soon as July 14th, there will be a Twitterview (an interview on Twitter) about the book, and as teaser material comes out from Peachpit I’ll be sure to tell you about it. But now that it’s so close to done, I can’t see a reason not to throw caution to the wind and just go ahead and pre-order it. You can, should you want to, pre-order from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble through the links below. Or you can wait. It’ll be the same book either way. As always, you’ve got all my gratitude – no author gets here without readers, and I’m grateful. Thank you.

Now I’m off to have a celebratory beer, and then dig into the first novel I’ve read in months. Or watch Misery, though I’m not sure we’re laughing about that just yet. But to re-cap: The fourth book in the trilogy is now out of my hands (cf Douglas Adams and do not question the math on 4/3)  and should be out, if Amazon is to be believed, middle of October. Start counting the days!

Over the last week I’ve done podcast interviews with two great guys. The first was with Matt Brandon, a great friend and collaborator. The second was with a new friend, Martin Bailey. Both interviews touch on similar themes and gave me a chance to talk about my accident, the brevity of life, and other topics that gave me a chance to sound off. As always I probably talked too much but that should surprise no one that knows me. Wind me up, let me go, and I seem to talk excessively until the batteries run out.

Anyways, if you’ve got time on your hands, both these gentlemen do great interviews and I can think of worse things than spending an hour with us (I can think of much, much better things too, but these are free, so they bump the other ones out of first place. )

Listen to Matt Brandon’s Depth of Field Interview HERE

Listen to Martin Bailey’s Podcast HERE

During my time in NYC I met Elliott Erwitt again. Not in person, but through his work. It’s been a couple years since I first looked at Erwitt’s work and for some reason seeing it this time made a significantly different impression on me. In fact, Erwitt kept popping up. The first time was in the Chelsea Market, an installation of his Italy work was there – probably about 30+ images. And then I saw his work on postcards in several stores, each time thinking I should really pick some up and never did. Finally I found myself in the Phaidon bookstore standing in front of half a dozen limited edition Erwitt prints, trying to will myself not to shell out for his deeply intimate photograph of a man – Robert Frank, as it turns out – kissing his wife in a kitchen in Italy.

Erwitt’s work has so many layers of Impact it’s hard to know where to begin, but the two that strike me most often are his sense of timing and his sense of humour, both of them often in the same moment – timing being one of the keys to great comedy.

I’m always of two minds about looking at the work of others. At the wrong time it gives way to imitation – good for flattery and even for a certain stage in the learning process, not so good if you stall there. But there’s so much to learn from others and how they see, and I couldn’t believe how utterly transported I was by Elliott’s work in Chelsea market. I stared at some of the prints, and while aware of the technical prowess they exhibited, it was so much more than that and THAT is where I want my work to go. I want my work to be so much more than the sum of its technical parts, so much more than just a bunch of layers of impact. I want my work to resonate with others the way Elliott’s does for me – because when I was done looking at his work and sat on the plane reflecting on it on the way home, I wasn’t thinking about how great the photographer was – I was thinking about the moments, and the magic of life itself: something heavily on my mind since a close friend discovered she had incurable brain cancer. Life is short and photography is a means by which we can expand it, reveal its hidden corners, notice even the most minute and fleeting moments. It’s not about photography, it’s about life. Erwitt does that for me and that makes him worth spending some time with.

See more of Elliott Erwitt’s work on his website HERE though the work on the website is not, in my opinion, anywhere near his best. But his books are on there and worth a trip to Amazon or your local library to spend some time with him.

This is my silhouette, in Italy, cunningly disguised as someone shooting video on a DSLR. Photo credit: Jens Stachowitz.

Video has become the next big thing in photography. Weird, huh? While I’ve ranted about the convergence of still and moving pictures before, it’s not because I don’t love where this is all taking us as creatives. I just get bent out of shape when everyone out there is already wrestling with their craft and suddenly the camera manufacturers and industry leaders put the pressure on to learn video. Video capability in today’s DSLRs is amazing, and some people will grab this by the horns and tell some amazing stories.  And some people, myself included, will have cameras with beautiful video capability and never learn how to record a single frame of video. Video is a separate language entirely and it means an investment in time and money to learn how to shoot, edit, sweeten audio, etc. If you thought still photography was expensive…

Still, there’s no denying the movement is here to stay, and mostly for the good, I think. This generation of visual storytellers has an unprecedented amount of tools at their disposal. To that end, I want to point you to one of those resources and share with you the next release in the Craft & Vision library, which will release at the end of the month.

First, Think Tank Photo has just released The Multimedia DSLR Buyer’s Guide and it’s packed with really solid recommendations to help you navigate through the forest of new gear you’ll need to understand. It’s been put together to support the marketing on their line of multimedia bags, which are an amazing piece of gear in themselves for video and multimedia people, but it’s a really helpful resource. And it’s free. You can find that HERE on the Think Tank Photo site.

Second, at the end of the month Craft & Vision will be releasing Trevor Meier’s Vision In Motion, an eBook written by a guy who is both a professional stills photographer and film-maker. It discusses the core issues of motion storytelling and for anyone who is wanting to begin dabbling with the video capabilities on their DSLR, it’s a great primer. It won’t teach you how to use your camera, but it’ll open your eyes to the issues involved in moving from stills to motion and help you get your footing as you learn to use your camera to begin speaking this entirely different visual language. Together with some of the great online resources out there you should be able to wrap your mind around some of these issues and begin filling harddrive after harddrive of footage. You Tube is already getting a restraining order knowing that if one more cat video is uploaded it will simultaneously crash their servers and cause a tear in the fabric of the universe. So please, for the love of Soderburgh, learn to do this well. Vision In Motion will be out end of the month and we’ll let you know when. As always, it’ll be $5. Or less.

And next month? We unveil a whole new Craft&Vision website, all the Craft&Vision books as apps on the app store, and a couple more books to inspire and educate. The new site allows reviews to be posted and we’ll be asking for your help with that, and putting an iPad on the line. Stay tuned!

Good morning. I’ve got a handful of links for you this morning, some worthwhile stuff I want to point you towards.

Scott Kelby and his gang of elves that never sleep have an online show called D-Town. I watched a few episodes when it first came out but as it was geared entirely for Nikon shooters I stopped watching. Only so many hours in the day and I don’t shoot Nikon (though I’d be willing to if the good folks at Nikon are interested in talking) Anyways, D-Town is no longer a Nikon-only show and that should make it suddenly relevant to anyone other than Nikonians. Details HERE.

My friend Gavin Gough has work in this year’s Travel Photographer of the Year book, as do I, though I’d forgotten about it until reading Gavin’s post. Where Gavin and I seem to differ is that he’s willing to give one of these books away. I thought, “What a great idea!” but where others would then give a copy away I’m just going to send you to Gavin’s site and encourage you to read the rules on his simple giveaway HERE. Gavin’s work is in a current/recent edition of Vanity Fair as well, check it out HERE.

Matt Kloskowski’s got a cautionary tale regarding THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKUP and I suggest you either read the story or just skip it and go, for the love of Binary, and back up your work. Do it now! And create an offsite backup while you’re at it.

Matt Brandon’s been rocking his blog lately. Be sure to check out his post on the last lantern maker in Penang, Malaysia HERE.Also be sure to catch all his Depth of Field podcasts. Matt’s a fantastic interviewer and his glimpses into the lives of working photographers is always full of laughter and insight. Catch his latest interview with Gary S Chapman and Vivien Chapman HERE.

Finally, I want to point you to two eBooks. If you’ve been around here you know I place a high value on reading and learning, and am investing a great deal of time on creating eBooks for the photographic community. I think we offer amazing eBooks at ridiculously low prices, but we aren’t the only ones. Bruce Percy, whose work I respect tremendously, now has an eBook out on his recent work at the Taj Mahal. Bruce does incredible work and is a thinking photographer. Click here to view more details

The last eBook is a more substantial effort from the folks at Digital Photography School. It’s called Photo Nuts and Bolts and where the eBooks at Craft & Vision are more about putting your technical knowledge to use in expressing your vision, this is about the foundation of the craft itself. It’s very well illustrated and the teaching is solid. If you’ve been looking to brush up on some of the basics, perhaps get your mind around something you’ve been missing, then I recommend you take a look at Neil Creek’s Photo Nuts And Bolts. It’s on sale for $19.97 and has a 30 day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk. There’s a reason the DPS site is one of the largest photographic communities on the planet, they do good work over there. Click here to view more details

Lastly, two housekeeping things. 1. We’re planning to release Andrew S. Gibson’s The Magic of Black and White, Vol.1 in 10 days or so. I’m very excited to have Andrew on board. Andrew is a skilled black and white photographer, a technical editor for EOS Magazine, and runs a great blog full of interesting interviews. Find his blog HERE. 2. I’ll be in Seattle tomorrow and Wednesday speaking at Amazon, which means a. road trip! and b. I won’t be around much. But I’ll be back later in the week with a report.

I have a bunch of things I want to point you to this morning.

The 23rd edition of the free online magazine PhotographyBB (above) is now up. The man at the helm of PhotographyBB is Dave Seeram and he was kind enough to interview me earlier this fall. That interview found its way into this issue.  Find more information and a free download of PhotographyBB Magazine HERE.

My friends Gavin Gough and Matt Brandon are leading a tour and workshop to the Kumbh Mela festival in India this April. I wish I could be part of it but my schedule doesn’t permit. Travelling and shooting with these two men is a privelege. I know the few spots available will go quickly and as the next Kumbh Mela isn’t until 2013, it’s not something you can just do next year.  More information on Gavin’s blog HERE.

The winners of this years Travel Photographer of the Year award were announced last week. The big winner was G.M.B Akash from Bangladesh and his work is stunning. Take some time to look at the work of the winners and runners-up HERE in the TPTOY 2009 Winner’s Gallery

Syl Arena rolled out the motherload of Canon-specific web resources on his blog last week. Find Part One HERE and Part Two HERE.

Last but certainly not least, my friend, and a member of this community, Jon McCormack has had one of his images selected to hang in the Yosemite Museum Gallery. Congratulations, Jon. It’s always exciting to see good people and good work recognized. See his announcement and his image, Vernal Falls in Summer, HERE

The holidays are nigh. I’ll be taking Christmas Eve, my birthday, and Christmas Day, off. So tomorrow’s likely the last post until Monday, the 28th. Check in tomorrow, then close the computer and go be with friends and family.

“…and a Nikon D3X, and a Gitzo tripod, and OH! can your elves make those Singh-Ray Vari-ND filters? They can? OK, I want one of them too…”

In the face of other gift guides, and in light of the tongue-in-cheek iconoclasm that goes on here at the PixelatedImage:Blog, I offer my 2009 Holiday Gift Guide for your consideration. A handful of gifts you might want to consider giving this year, to your favourite photographer, or even your spouse. Some will cost you a stack of coins, some of the best ones will cost you a few bucks or nothing at all. And some of them are blatantly self-promotional, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good!

1. The full collection of my Craft & Vision eBooks.
I’ll make it easy for you. After so many requests for gift cards or something, here’s the best I can do. Go to Craft&Vision.com and put all the books – 5 of them – into your cart. Then checkout with this code – 3wisemen – and you’ll get the books for 25% off – that’s $18.75 for all 5 books. Download accordingly. Then click here to download a cd/dvd label in layered PSD and in flattened JPG. Drop that file into your favourite label-template, print it, stick it on a DVD, burn the DVD and blammo! Lovely gift that will get used for much longer than a Starbucks gift card. (The discount works only with all 5 books and is valid until midnight on Dec.25)

2. Membership at the local Art Gallery or Museum
Decades and centuries of visual inspiration. We don’t need another catalog full of gear, we need our imaginations fired!

3. A year’s subscription to Kelby Training.
For the money this is one of the best places to get 24/7 learning all year round. Some of the best teachers on the planet, all in one place, all accessible from your laptop.

4. A Magazine Subscription.
A year’s subscription to a solid photography magazine like Digital Photo Pro, or Outdoor Photographer, among many others.

5. A copy of Within The Frame or VisionMongers.
Got those? How about Chris Orwig’s Visual Poetry? Whatever it is, giving the gift of education and learning has much more lasting returns than giving gear. Let someone else shell out on the stuff that’ll go obsolete. Want to go over the top with this one? Get them a couple of these books, and package them with a bottle of Ardbeg Uigeadail, arguably the best scotch whisky in the world and one which pairs nicely with books like Within The Frame.

6. Glass.
If you’re going to buy them gear and really plunk down some shekels, get them a nice lens. The good stuff. A lens will outlast all their bodies, laptops and anything you plug in or turn on. If they shoot Canon, get them something with the famous red collar. If Nikon, get them whatever’s on the front of Joe McNally’s camera. Or a lovely Zeiss lens – made in both Canon and Nikon mounts and with which you can’t go wrong, there are no crappy versions of those.

7. A week without talking about your camera,
Give your loved-one a week’s reprieve from talking about gear, the lens you don’t have, or mentioning the word “bokeh” – this one is for your spouse and I promise it’ll be well-received. You could also try going for a walk together and voluntarily leaving your camera at home.

8. A gift card from Artistic Photo Canvas.
Every photographer likes to see their work printed and mounted. The bigger the better. APC does a world-class job.

9. A “Still Need The Vision” t-Shirt.
Roger at RubyRed T-Shirt Designs has got some clever T’s, not the least of which is a great-looking T-shirt implying the need for Vision. Find it, and others, HERE.

10. A week in Italy with me and Jeffrey Chapman.
There’s one spot now left on the Italy Within The Frame Workshop, it just opened up. More information HERE. This one will take you into the stratosphere of gift-giving, and I’ll buy the recipient a nice bottle of red wine when we’re there. I’ll even sign it.

11. Time to create.
Married to a photographer? They sent you here? They’ll tell you they need gear. They might, they might not. You know what they really want? Some time to go making photographs without feeling they’ve got things to do at home. Give them a week off and make the kids do the dishes and stuff. Give the photographer in your home the gift of time to go play. Creativity flourishes when there’s time along the margins to play.

12. Nothing.
Most of us truly don’t need to add to the push to spend money during the holidays. Instead, why not make an investment in a family beyond our own? Spend some time on Kiva as a family and chose a project to invest in while helping a family on the other side of the world get a leg up and start their own business.

13. A goat.
Two of my favourite clients – World Vision and Save The Children, both have holiday Gift Catalogs. You can buy a goat for a family, a dairy cow, stock a medical clinic, or give soccer balls and books to a local school. I know, some of us are cynical about this stuff. But I can tell you first hand from being there that these gifts make a world of difference to the families and communities I’ve spent time with. I know, money’s short and we all need one more piece of gear. But if you’ve got a little room to stretch the budget, remember that there are families out there for whom a tripod is irrelevant. They have no food, no clean water, and no chance at an education. We can’t change the world all at once, but we can make a difference. One of my readers, Jimmy Brown, even started a lending team at KIVA, all photographers pooling their money to make a difference. You can join them HERE.

Still jonesin’ for something shiny? Here’s a random collection of my favorite bits of shiny for 2009:
Kiboko Bag from GuraGear.com. Serengeti sunglasses. Amazon Kindle. Paul Nicklen’s Polar Obsession or the National Geographic Image Collection. A new moleskine notebook, pocket-sized. A larger Hoodman Screen Loupe for the newer 3″ LCDs. A Sony PCM-D50 audio recorder. Think Tank Photo Skins. A used Hasselblad film camera from David Odess. Blackrapid R-Strap. A copy of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art.

This evening my publishers – Peachpit – are hosting a video conversation with me at 5pm PST. The disussion begins with me addressing some issues related to VisionMongers, then the bulk of the conversation becomes just that – a conversation. You can ask questions which will be moderated and fed to me, and we’ll have an hour to hash out some of this stuff. I’m really looking forward to it, but I’m told there’s limited space, so go HERE and sign up to get the secret location and secret handshake needed to get past the big guy at the door.

The reception for VisionMongers has been phenomenal, and both Chase Jarvis and Zack Arias have had some really encouraging things to say about it. Amazon reviews are trickling in now too and the one I loved said “there’s nothing new here,” which makes me chuckle because it’s so true. The only thing new about VisionMongers is that some of this stuff just needed to be said. There are no secrets, it’s a challenge to combine craft and commerce, and the wisdom we lean on to build a business in the creative arts is the same wisdom anyone else leans on. If all VisionMongers does is pull back the curtain a little and give people a more honest look at some of the challenges and the skills needed to meet those challenges, it’ll have done what I aimed to accomplish. If you’re working your way through it, feel free to leave comments here or on Amazon. If the book leaves you with questions, then leave those here too and we’ll discuss them. I’d love to get a more consistent dialogue going – and that’s not only for the working photographers, but for all of us.

Speaking of VisionMonger issues, here’s two things you need to check out in your spare time – the first is last week’s guest article over at Scott Kelby’s blog. Scott continues to feed us an incredibly diversity of voices and THIS article by Ryan Anderson is excellent. The other thing is THIS article on Freelance Switch about raising your prices. Check them out when you have a moment.

Finally, be sure to check out the growing list of excellent Depth of Field Interviews by Matt Brandon, the latest installment is Ami Vitale and is a must-listen. And it’s free. You can listen to that interview HERE on Matt’s blog.

I shot this in northern Bangladesh, earlier this year while on assignment. We’re now in between two great holiday seasons that focus on gratitude and giving. You don’t come here for preaching, but you know it’s going to happen once in a while. Please consider giving to organizations, like World Vision, Invisible Children, or others that work closer to home. Let’s make this year the year we stop with the token gifts and landfill-bound trinkets.

In my haste to get on the soapbox yesterday I completely neglected to wish my American readers a happy Thanksgiving. Being Canadian means we get Thanksgiving, in some measure, twice. Of all the holidays I think I could tolerate doing more than once a year, Thanksgiving is at the top. Daily would also be fine. So while we Canucks had our day way back in October and now have nothing to do until Christmas, y’all to the south are gorging yourself as I write this. In the spirit of the holiday, for which many turkeys have died – I’m deeply grateful for so much, not the least of which is you – my readers, fans, tweeps, and friends.

If y’aren’t already sick of my yapping, there are two solid interviews online that are now available for your listening pleasure.

First, my buddy Matt Brandon did an interview with me while we were in Ladakh. That interview is available HERE, along with others like Bob Krist, Nevada Wier, and Gavin Gough, on the Peachpit TV site. Matt’s interview skills are exceptional and I think the conversational tone of this interview probably makes it more fun than insightful, but that might just be me. Matt’s Depth of Field series is growing and he approaches his guests with some real insight – all his interviews are highly recommended.

The second interview is on episode #117 of TWiP (This Week in Photography) and it’s more focused on the release of VisionMongers and the issues I discuss in the book. Frederick’s becoming a good friend and he too is a fun interview, so take some time and listen to that episode, available HERE on iTunes.  Just look for Episode #117. Or, perhaps the easiest way, just got follow this link directly to the interview on Frederick’s site.

Reviews on blogs, Amazon.com, and Twitter, for VisionMongers are beginning to pop up everywhere. Looks like the book is finally hitting the far side of the planet, which will be good news for folks from Europe and Asia who’ve been waiting. Thanks for the great comments and the glowing reviews. Keep them coming. Knowing what resonates with you makes it easier for me to keep teaching in ways that that work best for you. And it doesn’t hurt book sales, either, so thanks!

Finally, the winter holidays are nearly on us and if your tradition involves giving gifts, then there are plenty of Gift Guides out there to help you out. I’ll probably post one too, though it’ll more than likely encourage you to give the give of education rather than gear, and I’ll point you to a couple organizations where you can spend your money on something for people much less fortunate. Many of you have asked what the easiest way to give my $5 ebooks as gifts and I’m working on that too. I’ll include a discount too, just to share the love. Keep your eyes peeled.

Have a great weekend.

I’m captivated by Paul Nicklen and his work right now. His book, Polar Obsession, is on its way from Amazon and I can’t wait until it arrives. I haven’t been this excited about a book coming my way for a while. I might even be more excited about this one arriving than I was about VisionMongers.

Paul Nicklen grew up among the inuit in the far  – FAR – north of Canada. He studied to become a biologist. He mapped out his career plan on a scrap of paper when he should have been studying for a genetics final in his 4th year at University of Victoria. He failed the exam but found a career. I’m so intrigued with Paul for several reasons. The first of course is that his images are breathtaking. I don’t care any more about seals per se than I do about, I don’t know, toy poodles. But his images make me care. His images of the arctic and antarctic make me care, make me want to be there. Hell, they make me want to get into that water with him. But more than that, I suspect I’m drawn to him because, like the visionmongers I profiled in the book, this is a guy who seems to do it because he can’t NOT do it. He cares deeply about his subject. He has leveraged his expertise and his own story, and found a place shooting something few others are shooting with such great affection.

A person with a reason to shoot is lucky. A person with a passion, an obsession, is damn-near unstoppable. And I think their images show it.

A leopard seal feeds Paul Nicklen a penguin. Antarctic Peninsula.
© Paul Nicklen

So to start the week of right I’ll stop yapping and refer you to some of the inspiring bits I’ve found on Paul Nicklen.

First, his own website is here. Be sure to look at his galleries and read his story. PaulNicklen.com

Next, a great YouTube video about some of the experiences behind his leopard seal images HERE and his underwater polar bear HERE.

PDN has an article on Paul Nicklen HERE.

Finally, if you’ve got a few shekels left after buying my recent barrage of books, you can find Paul’s book, Polar Obsession, HERE on Amazon.com