Calm Photos

Seth’s Blog: The Verizon guy who turned down the iPhone

Seth Godin has posted two very interesting notes regarding Apple’s iPhone (and yes, I’m getting in line). One of the benefits of all the hoopla surrounding a ground-breaking product introduction to such a potentially huge market is the opportunity to watch and learn how major business decisions are made, how large organizations function and how marketing strategies are formulated. And also the opportunity to see if the big gamble has legs for the long distance race (iPods were an initial flop, but then look what happened), or if it results in a big stink bomb.

My money is on the prediction that the iPhone has legs, and then some. Jobs and Apple now seem to be at the top of their game when it comes balancing innovative technology and products that drive the market (instead of vice versa) with marketing strategy and tactics that were thought to be practically extinct amongst organizations of that size and age.

During my childhood I was very fortunate to have contact with and influence from several adults who encouraged my love of nature and photography. An interest and talent not forced, but rather something that grew effortlessly from the opportunities placed before me - opportunities to explore, experiment and learn.

I’ll never forget those subtle powers of positive influence.

And so now today it is my responsibility to “play it forward,” not only in encouraging and helping young photographers just starting out but also providing my own daughters with opportunities to discover their own unique talents and passions. As I stated earlier today in an email to a friend, “no matter how much money one has, a person has a moral responsibility to make the most of his or her talent. That responsibility increases ten-fold when one becomes a parent.”

This past weekend I introduced my eight year old daughter Emma to nature photography during a trip to Hocking Hills. She’s starting out with the same camera I used when I was about 11. She’s learning the basics with a Pentax Spotmatic F, a 50mm lens and a tripod. She had already become use to the convenience of a point-and-shoot digital, so teaching her how to load film and manually focus and adjust for exposure took a little time. However, sometimes shooting photography completely manual, and with film, is the best way to fall in love with the art of the craft.

Who knows whether a seed took root or not. If it did, then it probably won’t be long till we build that black and white darkroom at home. What’s most important is presenting the opportunity to learn and explore, and having lots of fun in the process.

And a few more shots of my own -

Crowdsourcing: Faces in the Crowd: Interview Series Part I

I picked-up this article by way of a fellow Photodoto.com contributor who recently posted the link on the site. The article is an interview with a stock photographer who has made a pretty decent living with just her work that has sold on iStockphoto.com.

I too sell an occasional image license via my portfolio listed with iStockphoto, however, I’m not a mass uploader of images nor do I hold-out any hope that this venue will add any real $$$’s to the revenue stream of Picture Ohio, LLC. I like to keep a little bit more profitable control over my most popular images that are purchased for stock licensing, either directly or by way of my portfolio listed with Alamy.

What I submit to iStockphoto has more to do with my own curiosity as to what is accepted and what will sell, and I only like to submit those images which I think may have a niche market versus wide appeal.

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My cycling routine during the week has a new schedule for summer. Last year it was evenings on the Little Miami Scenic Trail in Warren County. This year I’ve switched gears (n.p.i) and started riding in the early morning, going from my home in Kettering, to Riverscape in downtown Dayton, and back home again via Shantz and Shafor in Oakwood. There are more hills as compared to the Little Miami, however, there is just something exhilarating about being out riding at the beginning of the day.

This morning, while coming down the hill on Patterson just beyond Hills and Dales MetroPark, I passed a line of parked cars in front of an apartment complex. There was a bumper sticker that caught my eye:

Save the Planet
Kill Yourself

It caught my eye because of the blatant negativity and hopelessness being communicated. At first I was a little bit angry, thinking to myself the car probably belonged to some such and such. But then I felt some sadness for the person who placed that sticker on his or her car. Sadness because he or she just doesn’t get it.

The truth is that a positive thought is at least 100 times more powerful than one which is negative.

So many people today are anti-this and anti-that. Anti, anti, anti.

Try being pro for a change.

With that in mind I’d like to present some positive affirmations via photographic imagery that clearly shows how I view the world and life, combined with a little saying that keeps me on track toward the positive. I estimate that with this message, and with these photographs, I’m quite easily counteracting the negative effects of that particular bumper sticker as well as others like it, by at least 1,000x.
The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

The Power of Positive
Eagles Forward

Save the Planet

Start with Yourself, and start and stay positive.

You can’t go wrong. This much I know.

Kathleen Connally’s Photoblog - Landscape Photography :: A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania

Today’s image is a perfect example as to why I consider Kathleen Connally’s photography and photo blog to be amongst the best on the web.

Kathleen also clearly illustrates the point I continue to emphasize when I write, give talks and conduct presentations for other photographers and photography enthusiasts.

The best photographs are often created in and around those places we call home, most often right outside front and back doors.

So many amateurs get caught-up in the thinking that one must travel to an exotic or touristy location or national park in order to capture images that captivate audiences with a sense of awe and wonder. This is a mistaken (and often costly) assumption that ranks right up there with “I must have the biggest lens and the camera with the highest megapixel sensor.”

The most important tool in a successful photographer’s arsenal of gear lies within his or her own head, and is the one which is most often neglected, that being the artistic vision that must be cherished, nurtured, developed and put to optimal use. And the one place where that vision is most effective is quite literally in our own backyards.

After two years of being in my Centerville location, where I manage the studio and gallery for Picture Ohio, LLC, I’ve finally acted on a few friendly suggestions on improving my visibility. Just yesterday Signetics - a local sign-making company that I highly recommend - delivered the new sign for my storefront. What an improvement ! This time I didn’t try to do the design myself, wisely leaving it up to the staff at Signetics. I am more than pleased with the design and the final product. The sing clearly communicates the emphasis on who I am and what I do versus my previous self-designed sign that simply emphasized the name of my business, Picture Ohio, LLC.

Looking back I think that name was throwing a lot of people off the fact that I provide photography services that include studio portraits, commercial/assignment, product, architectural as well as host of other digital imaging services PLUS the continued creation and sale of fine art nature, landscape and cityscape prints and photographs for decoration and stock licensing.

I was also motivated by the fact that I installed some exterior lights near my signs, on both the front and back entrances. Now I can safely say “just look for the big photography sign” when giving people directions to my studio and gallery.

Jim Crotty Photography

The static web site for Jim Crotty Photography and Picture Ohio, LLC isn’t so static anymore.

This site has gone through many changes, several software programs, four additional URL’s and three different hosting companies since it first went live, several years prior to the start of Picture Ohio, LLC in 2003. It first served as a way to showcase my personal portfolio of nature and landscape photography before being morphed into the main site for my photography business. During most of that time I used Microsoft FrontPage on a Windows-based desktop system for design and management of ohiophoto.org. I’ve never considered myself much of a web designer, by any stretch of the imagination, which is why I’ve used FrontPage for so long. Basically, if you can use Microsoft Word you can use FrontPage. It’s pretty basic and reliable, but it’s not exactly web 2.0-friendly.

Then something started to change, about a year ago when I invested in a MacBook Pro. I was re-born as a Mac addict. Apple had been my very first desktop computing platform of choice, back when Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe) first arrived on the scene, way, way back in 1987. I used Apples from that point up until I took my first job with a company that used only Windows-based systems, which was Vocational Resources International in Salt Lake City, about 1999. From that point it was Windows and PC’s, even when I started Picture Ohio, LLC and finally landed along the career path which I should have taken many years ago, that being professional photography.

After several painful lessons of trying to manage digital processing, editing and printing from a Windows PC, I have returned to the desktop platform that was, and continues to be, inherently designed for us “creative types” - designers, illustrators, graphic artists and most important of all, photographers. About two months ago I made the big, final leap back into the Mac pool with the purchase of a Mac Pro Quad Xeon 64-bit workstation with a refurbished 23″ Apple Cinema Display. I still have my old Dell PC, which still does a stand-up job of serving my Epson 7600 printer, but now almost 99% of my work in editing, processing and cataloging all of my digital photographs is completed on my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, made even more efficient through the use of Apple Aperture. The transfer of files works flawlessly over a wireless network that I manage with an Apple Airport Extreme, between both Macs as well as with the old Dell PC. And the slide show presentations that I now present in my studio via the Apple TV unit connected to a Sony Bravia are beyond breathtaking. My digital darkroom and studio is just about where I’ve always felt it should be.

This gets me back to the original point of this post, and that is the newly re-designed web site for ohiophoto.org, pictureohio.com, picturesqueohio.com and jimcrotty.com. I’ve trashed the old FrontPage site and replaced it with one created and managed using a program designed for Mac users called RapidWeaver. So far I really like it. The program seems to provide the functionality of WordPress with some of the best features of Dreamweaver. The best part is that I can now manage my site from my MacBook Pro from just about anywhere at anytime, as is the case with my WordPress blog, calmphotos.com.