Podcast listening and Links from within

I have been listen to a few podcasts and from there I have created to following links:

Getting the best out of shadows in photoshop http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/shadow-highlight/
Google image swirl, try it  http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/

Photobook ideas http://www.blurb.com/create/book/portfolio

Find blogs http://www.fastblogfinder.com/

http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/

http://blog.tylerginter.com/

tiltshift without the lens http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/

http://www.weebly.com/

http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/

http://www.kelbytraining.com/

Have a go at stacking in Lightroom
http://x-equals.com/blog/?p=4057&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+xequalsblog+(x%3Dblog%2Bstay%2Binformed)

Some mac stuff
http://appbodega.com/

Keywords, Lightroom and Flickr and few other things

I have been using Flickr, Facebook and a number of other sites for a good while now. When it comes to posting my photos I have always been slow updating keywords about the shots.

For those that do not know what keywords are, well they are the words that people like you and I type into search engines etc to find image content.

Adobes Lightroom has a great function of adding key words to all images prior to uploading. Type in the words, they enter a database within Lightroom and before you know it you have a large list that you can use over and over again.

When you export your images to Flickr or another image site the keywords go with it.  Try it

Flickr.

Hunting around on Flickr and viewing others shot for a while now. One thing I really like is the content attached to images. However writing your own image info is not always easy. One idea I have seen a few time is the attachment of Wikipedia information and links to shots, just like this one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sid_man/4169033224/

You can see that I have also added a copyright before the image just link this. Hopefully it will stop images being used without my OK.

================================================================

Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

================================================================

And finally

A few shots uploaded recently to Flickr of Danielle and Fiona.

Paddaccino

I was meant to be deccorating this afternoon but cut my hand wide open on a piece of metal.  So instead of painting, plastering and all other manner of things I made a short video.

Paddaccino, coffee the Irish way.

All filmed on a cheapo Canon 620 Powershot.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jphbV2U6K10

Some more great links

I have created this list of sites from around the net as an easy link for me.  It could be of use to you too.  Try them out.

1 Flickr.com

One of the first photo-sharing websites, Flickr is now five years old and houses more than 3 billion pictures. A basic account is free and offers some useful ways to organise and share your photos, either via invitation, for the eyes of family and friends only, or with the whole world.

2 Photo.net

With more than 700,000 shutterbugs as members, you should be able to get advice on pretty much anything photographic in the busy forums. The gallery section, meanwhile, provides some useful inspiration — although the emphasis is on over-polished, postcard views.

3 digital-photography-school.com

This virtual school, run by keen amateur lensmen, is particularly strong on the dark arts of postproduction. See also www.photoshop.com, a companion site to the industry-standard retouching software.

4 SmugMug.com

This is where the pros go when they’ve outgrown Flickr. Subscription starts at $39.95 (£24.50) a year, but the advantages of this photo-sharing site include no ads, unlimited storage and no limit on the size of shots.

5 photography.alltop.com

Alltop is basically a portal that accumulates links from blogs, news and magazine sites on any subject you care to name. Its photography pages are littered with hundreds of good links. Brilliant, random fun.

6 Photobucket.com

This is where millions of us quietly store our pictures online without even realising it, as it’s the place where MySpace and Facebook images are filed. It’s also a photo-sharing rival to Flickr.

7 OutdoorPhotographer.com

A great place to swot up on tips for shooting outdoors. The galleries of the professionals here are mesmerising, and keen snappers can enter the site’s competitions.

8 Corbis.com

Corbis is a photo agency that sells pictures to newspapers and other media, but if you’re looking for inspiration, its powerful search engine will grab the work of hundreds of professionals in seconds.

9 BW.amitbasu.org

How to choose from the hundreds of photographers’ blogs? Amit Basu’s site is a good start: he posts a new luminous, eerie, black-and-white shot most days, with some technical detail available.

10 Photography.NationalGeographic.com

No magazine takes its photography more seriously than National Geographic, and its site dedicated to the art is a real labour of love. The video guides alone will help you see your camera in a different way

A few real places to visit
http://www.apertureuk.com/about.htm

http://www.mwclassic.com/index.html

http://www.reddotcameras.co.uk/about_us.php

http://www.rglewis.co.uk/

http://www.theclassiccamera.com/

http://www.richardcaplan.co.uk/

Music
http://www.tuberadio.fm/

Enjoy.

Steve

New Website

I have been thinking about changing the look of my website for a while now. I have had some great feedback about my current site, but I don't go with the saying "If it's not broke don't fix it"

So Last night a spent 3 hours revamping my site. I have removed lots of content, reduced the pages and made it really simple.

Here is the front.

link to the test page. http://www.wix.com/stevemahon/new

What are your thoughts?

Some great photography sites

Just for my own reference. A few photo sites along with other stuff. May be worth a worth a look:

Photo

• http://www.diyphotography.net/
• http://www.camerahacker.com/directory/Hacks.shtml
• http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010252.asp
• http://www.vimeo.com/#welcome
• http://www.picnik.com/app
• http://www.stockphototalk.com/phototalk/

Tips

• http://lifehacker.com/
• http://www.dumblittleman.com/

Other

I met Oleg at the Bouf event. Oh man his photos rock

• http://www.oleg-photo.com/

Bouf Event Photo Shoot.

Had a great night last night in Central

London. The Future Gallery, Great Newport Street, in Central

London just near Leicester Square.

Bouf.com and Joolia.com

where showcasing twenty new products and favourite designers at this exclusive Press event.

Founder, Alex Griffin, and a selection of homeware, gift and jewellery designers spoke during the evening and for the rest of the time it was networking for all.

The event was sponsored by Courvoisier future 500 and Joolia and I was the sole photographer.

With the Courvoisier flowing I grabbed my Canon 5d and started firing away.

Along with the camera body I had around ten lenses for the shoot.

One hand were:-

• Canon 17 35mm F2.5
• Sigma 24 24mm F4
• Canon 50mm F1.8
• Canon 70 210mm f3.5
• Asahi Super Takumar 50mm F1.4
• 2 Canon flashes
• A tripod
• 3 x remote flash triggers

Along with the 300 plus RAW shots on the SLR I took another 1200 shots for a time lapse video on my Canon SD610.

Time Lapse here on Vimeo or Flickr video

This made for a great evening of reportage photography with an arty element.

Here is a link to the grouped flickr shots.

• People
• Products
• Event

Sponsored by

Acer Aspire fixed

OMG. Cannot believe it. First try and I have fixed the Acer, no need for RMA, no need to send off for a week to have it tweeked, no need for any of that.

How to recover from a black dead Acer Aspire one.

Acer Aspire One BIOS Recovery

The AA1 has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, making it possible to flash the BIOS even if the system doesn't boot anymore. It's only meant for emergencies and may void your warranty, so use at your own risk.

Follow every step carefully!

First format an USB stick with FAT.

Download the latest BIOS, extract and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that's important. Remove the USB stick and place in the left hand USB slot on Acer.

Turn the AA1 off, make sure both battery and AC adapter are connected. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking. Press the power button once. The AA1 will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After a while the power button will stop blinking, and the AA1 will reboot shortly after. Wait patiently.

The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

If for some reason you made a mistake during the procedure and it doesn't reboot by itself wait 5 minutes before turning it off, just to be safe that it isn't still flashing the BIOS.

Credit

http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/08/acer-aspire-one-bios-recovery.html

Acer Aspire One crashed out

Ok, so we have an Acer Aspire one in the family. For those that don't know what that is; it's a cracking little netbook the size of a errrrrrrrrr BOOK.

I bought this for my daughter about 8 months ago and she has been using it every day. Well that was until last night. It was turned on this morning and nothing. The screen in black, it sounds dead, just a slow spin from the hard drive.

Now you must be thinking why the hell is he posting this on a photography blog. The reason is that when on a big shoot I take the net book with me and back up my memory cards to the hard drive.

As I only ever shoot in RAW the files are very big, 12mb each photo. It does not take long for a card to fill.

Now for the next steps.

• Do I send it back under warranty
• do I try and get it going.

Hunting around the web suggests that it could be a BIOS failure, it that’s the case it could be an easy fix. A BIOS upgrade will be a lot quicker than returning under a RMA number.

Ill have a think and let you know what I’m going to do.

Here is the machine

http://www.acer.com/aspireone/aspireone_8_9/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_Aspire_One

I joined picturesocial.com

Was browering the tinternet last night and came across http://www.picturesocial.com/profile/SteveMahon.

Looks like a cool site, some really nice stuff on there, but also some junk.

I have uped a few images, have a look, you may enjoy it.

Website comments updated

A special thank you to all those that responded to my cries for help. I really wanted to get my site tweeked and finished. Facebook friends, family and all the others out there that helped out have made all the difference.

I'm happy with the site : - http://www.wix.com/stevemahon/home

I have even managed to get this feed onto the last BLOG page via a RSS feed. Dont ask me what that is because I have now idea, but it worked.

Thanks again.

What a day. Website updated

In between painting and decorating my bathroom I have updated my website. Unfortunately I would seem that more time has been spent in front of this PC and less with a brush in my hand.

I have added a comments page along with more photos, oh and a link to this here very blog.

Here is my website address http://www.wix.com/stevemahon/home have a click and tell me what you think. Comment on the site comment page or here, whatever takes your fancy.

For those that cannot be bothered clicking the link, that picture here is of the front page.

Right, now for more painting.

So I created a blog site, here we go

Got a Facebook photographer account and a FB personal account, been on flickr for 2 year, sending emails since year dot and have a website but blogging is all new to me. So here we go.

The plan as with most blogs is to keep this updated with my photography stuff. What I have been shooting, why, where and with whom or should that be with who!

Anyway, over the weekend I met up with a cool gang of guys, some from up north and one from down south. The plan was to get in all the tourist London sites in a day, thats what we did on our ever faithful bicycles.

Here is a link to a few more on flickr. Ill upload a few more later.

As I was riding light and didnt want to carry a lot of stuff including a heavy camera so I made use of my daughters Canon IXUS 960 IS.

What a camera. It's a shame that there is no full manual operation. Not being able to manually adjust did hold things back, especially the fact that I couldn't hold that shutter open in low light.