Happy Thursday everyone! Just wanted to pop on in and share what’s new in the intranets:
Terry White’s New Iphone App
Terry white over at his techblog is usually covering all sorts of technology and letting us know what his favorite apps are for the iphone. He’s taken that love and mixed it with his wildly popular Creative Suite 4 podcast and turned it into an iphone app of it’s own! Now, you can go to the Itunes Store and for 1.99, you can download his app. The app not only gives you access to his podcast over the iphone (no download needed, but you can if you want to), you can ALSO check out free content available to it.
Congratulations All Around
A big congratulations to Joe McNally, Scott Kelby, and David Duchemin for rocking the top 5 of the top 10 Best Books- Art and Photography on Amazon.com! Joe McNally earns the top spot this year for his Hot Shoe Diaries, with Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book Vol 3 immediately behind it. Right out of the gate, David Duchemin makes it into the top 5 with Within The Frame. I’m lucky to call all three authors friends, but even if they weren’t – those three books really need to be on your holiday list for this year.
The Digital Photography Book Volume 3 Scott’s Digital Photography books are those books that I keep in the trunk of my car, or in my camera bag – often going back to them to find a quick tip or trick to get me out of a photographic bind. To me, they are indispensable – the tips ranging from the “Duh, I should’ve thought of that” to the “So THAT’S how they make this kind of image” – everyone can get something. To this day, the Digital Photography Book volume 1 has not left my backpack- which shows how much I value this series. If you know another photographer and want to get them something they will enjoy, you cannot go wrong with this book.
The Hot Shoe Diaries
McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries is another story altogether. Through some amazing storytelling, Joe takes you through a journey into small flash photography. You’ll laugh out loud, giggle to yourself, and find yourself in meditation about all of the different ways to use your flash. Most importantly, you get to peek into the mind of another photographer and see -how- they thought of a scenario in order to make the picture. I know tons of photographers out there that say “I learn best by watching someone else do it.” If you fall into that category, and want to learn from one of the masters behind the lens, this book will deliver like Dominos!! (Look for a cameo from my wife Jennifer. She the ballet picture kicking off Part 1. Oh, and you can also see her on the front cover of Nikon World magazine! Go Jenn!!)
Within The Frame
Last but certainly not least is Within The Frame. I say it to pretty much anyone who listens: one of the things that I love about this book is that it really dives into the concept of developing that inner eye needed for your photography. Without sounding esoteric and out of reach, David really takes you through the process of honing your vision, talking gear, intent, mood, color and meshing it with a good dose of inspiration. The book is a savory read, and leaves you really wanting to go outside and -look- at things – something that I think really is missed these days with the Spray and Pray mentality of cameras. An awesome, awesome read.
Again, congratulations to all three here.. totally deserved! An extra congrats goes out to our friends over at Peachpit for recognizing amazing authors and making sure their voices are heard. You guys rock!
Next Stop on our CS4 Unleashed Tour – San Diego! Nov 20
Now that Dave Cross is back, he and I are both gearing up for the next stop in our CS4 Unleashed Tour, coming to San Diego, CA on November 20. Come spend a day with us talking about how to use applications in the Creative Suite to create cool stuff. From interactive PDFs to AIR apps, you’ll get to laugh, cry, wince, and rejoice at all of the tips Dave and I get out there to you. Cool part? its 49 bucks (39 if you are a NAPP member) and you get a FREE DVD. Come on.. you know you’d love to hang out with us… we’ll see ya there!
Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.
The Contest Question:
On the Peachpit.com website, there is a blog section called Author Talks, hosted by Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel. What did she cover on October 28, 2009?
The Prize:
How about this. Since we were talking about all three books being in the Amazon Top 5, how about I give you ALL THREE of those books! That’s right, you can have the Peachpit Amazon Editors Choice Collection! (my name.. I just thought it sounded cool )
(click on the image to see a larger copy on Flickr)
Traveling To Kansas City – The Biodegradable Tripod
I traveled on Wednesday from St. Louis to Kansas City for the next stop of the CS4 Unleashed tour i’m doing today. As I was in the car, one of my co-workers said “I know you like looking for things to shoot when you get into town.. wait till you check out the lobby.”
Sure enough, it did not disappoint. The Hilton took over this hotel several years ago, and the entrance was just awesome! Problem here was that I did not bring a tripod with me to work on any HDR. As I was checking in I noticed that there was a bowl of Granny Smith apples there for guests. After helping myself to one I thought “Hey.. maybe I can use that as a way to prop the lens”
The crew at the front desk giggled as I put the apple under the camera and fired off a series of shots into the main hallway. Giggling aside, I said “Hey.. don’t laugh.. I think this is going to come out great!” A couple of minutes later, some Photomatix, Lightroom, and Photoshop and you got the image that’s above.
I put it on Flickr but after a couple of hours I noticed that there was something in the image that was not completed.. and that was bugging me quite a bit. Thankfully, I have a Flickr Pro account. Flickr Pro allows you to replace the image that you have without losing any view counts and comments. More and more I am noticing that Flickr has become a viable way to share and market your images – and being able to make corrections and replacing is just another thing that you can add to the bag of tricks. Very good indeed.
I’m a big fan of checking out good plugins that are out there for being able to show your information on the web. Digicrafts is one place that I always keep on a short list based on a good track record i’ve had with their components. Thankfully I got an email not too long ago that said that they recently announced a PageTurn 3D Gallery plugin for Lightroom 2. This gallery will let you make a Flash gallery that offers a magazine with Page turning (similar to what you would see in an Indesign CS4 export SWF) to give you yet another way to demonstrate stuff on the web.
Cool Website – Gray Imaging
When I was in NYC last, I stopped by B&H to do some quick shopping. As I was there, I met Eli Gray – and in no time flat we were going back and forth showing each other images. I thought Eli had a great website and figured it be a cool place to show it off here. So.. for nothing other than “check this out – it’s cool” go pop on into Eli’s website:
)
The crew at the front desk giggled as I put the apple under the camera and fired off a series of shots into the main hallway. Giggling aside, I said “Hey.. don’t laugh.. I think this is going to come out great!” A couple of minutes later, some Photomatix, Lightroom, and Photoshop and you got the image that’s above. 
Cool Website – Gray Imaging
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