Category Archives: announcement

New Travel and Photography Blog!

There is no doubt that things have been quiet around here on the ol’ blog. There’s good reason. I’ve moved.

Believe it or not, I’ve had this blog for 10 years and a lot has changed in the internet world. WordPress has improved, templates have improved, and people are viewing content on very different devices than they were in 2008.

I took a year off to think about how best to update and improve this site, and I decided that I really needed to address a few things moving forward. First, I wanted to make sure the new version of the site is more accessible on more devices. Second, and related to that, I wanted the new blog to allow for larger photos, when applicable on bigger screens. I also wanted to change up the format and content a bit and I plan on including some new things like interviews, gear reviews, etc. But more on that later.

For now, the big news is that the new blog — Shutterworthy — is now online:

I hope you’ll agree that it is a big improvement and it’s all in a format where I can now better keep up with advancing technologies. Check it out, and let me know what you think. This will be my last post here on the old blog, but I’ll keep it up for awhile as an archive of older stories. All new content from this point forward will go on Shutterworthy.

The new blog is linked directly off of my new michaelcsnell.com homepage:

The homepage now acts as a portal to Shutterworthy, my portfolio site on PhotoShelter, and it has a convenient contact button in case you’re just needing to shoot me an email.

I hope to see you all over on the new site. Change can be difficult, but I’m really excited about the new possibilities afforded by my new platform. Head on over and check it out.

And thank you for all of your past interest in this blog for the last 10 years. If you’ve found things of interest here, I think you will also do so on the new site.

See you on the road — Michael.

Kansas 10×5 book

For the past few years, an idea had been brewing. That idea is now a book called “Kansas 10×5” and it’s available from my Blurb bookstore.

I’ve always loved hanging out with other photographers and shooting alongside them. There is something fascinating about how we each see the same things so differently. For years there has been a fluctuating group of local photographers I know that have taken day-trips or long weekends together, just to make photos and have fun. Some of us are professional, others just enthusiasts, but we’re all just shooting for the enjoyment of it and to see how we each approach the same subjects. In the past we’ve had blogs where we would share images or we would just email them around to the group. We talked about doing more — other projects — but we’re a bunch of busy people and it’s hard to make the time for an extensive project and have it fit everyone’s schedules.

When my friend Bhaskar Krishnamurthy moved to Kansas City, he and I also began talking about ways we could work together and ways that he could meet other local photographers. Everything began to come together and the idea of this book evolved.

Initially we wanted to have photographers from all over the country descend on Kansas for 10 days to shoot a book. Our attempts to find funding were less than spectacularly successful so we eventually pulled back to the idea of using more local photographers. Doug Stremel and Ferry Keizer had already been on board from the local photographer’s group I mentioned, and Doug suggested adding Earl Richardson to replace a couple of out-of-state photographers that couldn’t make it. I’d known Earl only by his work but when I met him one morning with Doug for breakfast, it was easy to see that he was a great fit.

So we settled on the five of us and 10 days. The ratio of 10×5 made sense (2-1), as it is basically the same proportion as the state itself, which measures 400 miles by 200 miles. So the 10×5 name explained the 10 days + 5 photographers, the shape of the state, and even led to the development of the grid for the layout of the book. It’s a 12″ square hard-cover so, when opened, it is 24″ x 12″ — the same 2-1 ratio as the state.

But to get to the point, we ended up with what I think is a really fun book. Five guys’ impressions of a state that they either grew up in or found later in life and now call home. Each made their own path for the most part, but we all met on one night to photograph the Symphony in the Flint Hills event together.

I want to thank Bhaskar, Ferry, Doug and Earl for their participation and cooperation on this book. It was a project that was great fun for me, and I hope you check out the preview on Blurb and enjoy it as well. Over the coming days, I’ll post a some out-takes of mine from the book, and maybe a few behind the scenes stories. Stay tuned…

New book and other announcements

The latest book in my “Journals of a Travel Photographer” series is now available in the Blurb bookstore. Here’s a direct link, or you can visit the store page on my own website for links to this and other books in the series. The Spain book features images from an 8-day trip I made to the Extremadura region of Spain last year. It was my first trip to Spain and I immediately fell in love with the historic cities and Roman ruins found throughout the region. Check out the preview on the Blurb site for more. A Spanish-language version may be following soon.

The Extremadura book has actually been out for a couple of weeks, but I have been late in announcing it here on the blog due to a second trip I just made to Spain — this time to the province of Granada. I also plan on releasing a “Journal” book about this trip in a few months. Several blog posts will feature highlights over the coming days and weeks, as well. For a bit of a preview, however, you can check out my interview that was published in the Tamron e-newsletter last week:

The story features a few of the photos I made on the Granada trip using the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens. I have also recently received their SP 150-600MM F/5-6.3 Di VC USD for testing — stay tuned for some future posts featuring images from that lens.

So there’s plenty on the way in the coming weeks. I just wanted to make sure I got this plug in for the Extremadura book before inundating you all with images from my more recent Granada trip.

SATW CS Awards

I recently returned from the Central States Chapter meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), where I’m proud to say that I was awarded the 2013 Photographer of the Year Award. The photo above of a group of Swedish festival dancers in Lindsborg, Kansas, sealed the deal. It won first place in the “Action or Motion” category and was then judged best of all of the first place category winners. I don’t enter a lot of competitions but the SATW ones mean a lot to me because of all the great shooters that belong to that organization. The fact that a Kansas shot won over images made all around the world also made me very happy. For those interested in getting into travel photography, it’s a lesson that you don’t have to go to distant, exotic destinations to make interesting photographs. There is often plenty of material right in your own backyard.

Here are a few other images of mine that placed in the SATW CS competition:

This shot from Quebec City took second place in the “Places/Scenery Featuring U.S./Canada” category.

Another Kansas shot from a rodeo in Phillipsburg took third place in the “Action or Motion” category.

And yet another Kansas shot of a steak dinner at the Grand Hotel restaurant in Cottonwood Falls took third place in “Food Reflecting Local Cultures.”

I also tried my hand at my first ever Photo Shootout at the Central States meeting, held in Little Rock, Arkansas. Basically, participating photographers have 24 hours to shoot images in five categories and then a few more hours to assemble a 10-image portfolio for submission. The following are a couple of my images that placed in that competition:

This shot of the interior of the Arkansas State Capitol took first place in “Architecture.”

This shot of the Clinton Library and the adjacent pedestrian bridge took first place in “Bridges” category.

My congratulations to everyone else who won awards at our Central States meeting. It was great seeing and traveling with you all and I look forward to doing so again soon.

New book: China

I’m very happy to announce that my new book, “China: Six Days in Shanghai and the Water Towns of the Yangtze River Delta,” is now available through my Blurb.com bookstore.

book_china_int01

This is the first book in a series I’m calling “The Journals of a Travel Photographer.” There are several more planned in this series and a few of them are already well into production, so they should be joining this one in the bookstore soon. Each title in the series will document a particular photo gathering trip that I’ve taken and this first book covers a 6-day press tour to China that I joined in 2008. The photos appear more-or-less chronologically as they were taken throughout the trip. The images do not provide a complete, in-depth study of the region but, rather, document that particular trip and the things I experienced during that week. As the books will illustrate, there wasn’t always time to wait for the perfect weather or perfect light on most of these trips, but many magical moments still managed to occur and — hopefully — I captured a few of them.

This self-published series is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. The books will allow me to share images that otherwise may not ever appear in print. They will also allow me to show a broader collection of images from one destination than would typically be possible in a short magazine story or an individual stock placement. Having been on the design side of magazine and book production in the past, I understand that photo editors have their reasons for choosing to use one image over another for their specific purpose. The shot that I like most, might not be the shot that tells the story they need told, or that fits their particular layout. Here, I get to choose the images that are used and I get to tell my own story.

I’m using quite a few images, too. There are over 100 photos in this first 80-page book, and yet several of them are full page or even larger. Text is fairly minimal with a brief introduction about the trip and captions that tell about the location and perhaps a bit about how the photo came about.

I also see this series of books as being a way for me to say “thank you” to all of the people that have helped give me the opportunity to travel to these amazing places. Some of the trips covered in these books were press trips and I’ve not always had a way of sharing the images I made with the people who hosted me. If I get a clip or two from a stock image placement or a story that I’ve supplied photos for, I send them along, but I often never receive samples of my images in print. These books will give me a way to share more of my images with those people who helped make them possible.

The books in this series will be available in both softcover and hardcover editions, with slightly better paper used in the hardcover editions as well.

Here are a few sample spreads from the China book. You can find more information on my website or you can “flip through” a partial preview over on the Blurb site.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, this is just book one in a series. Stay tuned for additional titles, coming soon. And thanks for your interest!

Hotel Carpet

I announced this on Facebook earlier but neglected to do so here. I’ve launched a new site, Hotel Carpet, to showcase photos of rug patterns I encounter while traveling. It’s an idea I’ve had for a while and I wish I’d started documenting these carpets earlier but I haven’t always traveled with my iPhone and that has proven to be the most efficient way of recording these floor coverings. At any rate, I’m doing it now and you can find the results at: http://michaelcsnell.com/hotelcarpet/

There’s not much here in the way of serious intention, more just observation. It seems that – especially among chains in the U.S. – hotels are gravitating toward really wild, bold patterns in their carpets. It’s a trend that I’ve decided to document and share. You’re welcome. 😉

I’ve had questions about whether I’ll accept submissions and, for now, I’m just testing the water with a couple of people. Down the road, I may add a way for more people to participate by uploading their own images but, for now, I’m keeping this simple and manageable. If things change, I’ll announce it on the “about” page of the Hotel Carpet site.

Updates will be sporadic, just like my travels. Enjoy.

The image I launched the site with, from a hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana. See more at Hotel Carpet.

Making some changes

I’m changing servers this week to try and correct some issues I’ve been having with this site. There may very well be some interruption of service but please bear with me and I’ll try and have everything up and running again soon. Thank you for your patience!

Update: It appears that the switchover to the new server has been successful. No doubt there will be tweaks to be made here and there over the coming days but I’m excited to feel some forward momentum with the site — and especially this blog — again. Most importantly, the comments should be back online so feel free to leave a note. Thanks!

Comments

I’ve been receiving notes from readers that the comments aren’t working on this blog. I’ve been troubleshooting the issue and it seems to be related to my most recent WordPress update and some possible incompatibilities with my hosting service. At any rate, I’m working on the issue but also have plans to add some new features to my site soon that may include an entirely new blogging platform. Bear with me please as I get this all sorted out. Thanks!

SATW Central States awards

News arrived yesterday that I had six images place in the 2012 Society of American Travel Writers Central States Chapter photo competition. Thank you to the judges and organizers — I’m honored. The real kick for me was in getting 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the People category. What a shock! The photo above was the 1st place winner. I also took 1st in the Action category, 3rd in Food and an honorable mention in International Places.

The awards were announced at the Central States meeting in the Florida Keys last week, which I was unfortunately unable to attend. It’s always great to see the other photographers’ work during the presentation. Hopefully they’ll eventually be posted somewhere online. I’ll share the link here if that happens.

Congratulations to all of the other winners as well!

Photoshop CS6 public beta

Just to further distract me (and yes, I’m sure that it is all about me), Adobe has released a public beta version of the new Photoshop CS6. How could I not download it and how could I not wasted endless hours checking it out? Happily I had some real work that I could use it for… which I did… and then I started playing around with the fun stuff. Lo and behold, who knew there was a new Oil Paint filter? I had to give that a go and the result is what you see above — a stylized and slightly Tim Burton-esque view of the redbud tree blooming in my backyard. It’s probably a little hard to make out all of the paint effects at this size but, trust me, there’s some cool stuff going on in there. This warrants further investigation.

So far I’m less impressed with the new Content-Aware Move Tool, but I also found an additional set of controls for it that may make me change my mind. Chalk today up to one, big productivity loss… I mean… professional development opportunity.

Michael C. Snell photography blog

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