Jennifer Gidman over at Tamron wrote a nice story about me and my experiences with Tamron’s new 18-270mm VC PZD lens. That’s the compact all-in-one lens I road tested while in New Zealand last November. If you’re not a subscriber to the Tamron e-Newsletter, you can find the story here.
Thanks, Jenn!
The lack of recent posts has been, in large part, due to the fact that I’ve been rebuilding my website at www.michaelcsnell.com from the ground up. Not only is it a total redesign with expanded and updated galleries, it’s also the beginning of a new effort to have tutorial content, books and other products on the site.
For a long time my website has been a fairly static portfolio site. Now I want to push it in a more dynamic direction where I can expand on some of the things I do here on the blog. The portfolio will still be there — and more robust — but I’m really excited about the addition of two new sections of the site: the Toolbox and the Store.
The Toolbox will be my place to share tips and tutorials. I’ve started with the obligatory “What’s in my bag?” article but plan to add many more on photography, post-processing, workflow, etc. I’ll wait until CS6 and LR4 are officially released but there might be some Photoshop actions and Lightroom presets on their way, too. So much to do, so little time, but it will be fun to see where all of this leads.
The Store is where I’ll be launching several lines of books and maybe a few other surprises. The first books I’ll focus on are what I’m calling “The Journals of a Travel Photographer” series. These will essentially be “scrapbooks” of the images I’ve made during specific trips, whether it was a weekend in St. Louis or two weeks in Thailand. I’m also planning a series of “how to” books (or possibly e-books so that they can be a bit more dynamic) and there are ideas bouncing around for a few art books, too. I’ll announce it here on the blog when new books become available but I’ve also put links on the site where you can sign up to be put on our e-mailing list for new product announcements.
There’s more info about all of this on the site. Check it out — and sorry if there are still a few bugs in the system. It just launched a few hours ago and it’s definitely in a “phase one” state. Much, much more to come…
Just a quick note to say that Adobe has announced Creative Suite 5 today, including Photoshop CS5. That’ll put a hitch in my day. Guess I’ll be watching new feature demos ’til the cows come home. Rather than list a bunch of links to the product information, I’ll just link to the post I ran across on John Nack’s blog. He has provided links to several sources and will surely keep it updated as new reviews surface. Actually, upon further inspection, I see that he has started a CS5 category here for future posts. Shipping for Photoshop CS5 should begin within 30 days, according to the press release.
Happy 20th birthday, Photoshop!
PS: Does anyone else think it’s odd that Lightroom isn’t part of Adobe’s Master Collection or the Creative Suite for that matter? And Lightroom 3 does not seem to be a part of this announcement.
I’ll take a break from posting photos from my trip to China today to announce the launch of a new project.
Travel by the Pint is a video podcast featuring interviews with brewmasters and brewpub owners from around the country. Local attractions are also spotlighted in each episode.
This project has been in the works for over a year and filming of the interviews began last May. The entire first season is shot and in production but we are oh-so-happy to finally be able to announce that our first episode is now available on the Travel by the Pint web site. The vidcast is also available through the iTunes store by individual download or as a free subscription.
Steve Mazylewski (above), the brewmaster at Hog Haus Brewing Company in Fayetteville, Arkansas, was kind enough to be our first interview and appears in the first episode along with a visit to the nearby Coleman Theatre in Miami, Oklahoma. The restored vaudeville theatre has previously appeared on this blog as well.
We’ve had a great time getting this project rolling and have lots of plans for its future. Please stop by the Travel by the Pint web site site and check it out. We hope you enjoy it. And — don’t forget — please drink responsibly.
Friday night was the opening for the K4 show in Atchison featuring photography by Bruce L. Snell, Ferry Keizer, Doug Stremel and myself. The ribbon-cutting above started the event off and we followed with a great evening of seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Thanks to all who came out and, if you couldn’t make it, I hope you get a chance to catch the show before it ends on October 18th.
Saturday morning the moving van arrived to load up the last, big items that needed to be hauled out of our old house and downtown office space and take it to the new home/office in Lawrence, Kansas, 30 miles to the east. It was actually a more relaxed day for us because we finally had someone else to do the lifting and we pretty much just pointed out where things were to go. Once that was done, we picked up the cats and let them explore their new home. Caper was first to negotiate the leap over the stairs to the top of the wet bar — a spot that he now enjoys for some quiet relaxation.
The K4 crew after hanging their first show at the Muchnic Gallery in Atchison, Kansas. Left to right: Me (that big fuzzy head in the foreground), Doug Stremel, Bruce L. Snell, and Ferry Keizer. Come see us and/or the photos at the opening reception August 22nd from 5 to 7 p.m.!
Adobe Labs has posted a beta version of Lightroom 2.0 for download. Some good resources are available on NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Learning Center.
More related links are available on John Nack’s blog. One that I find particularly interesting as a travel photographer is this link to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adventure 2008, Destination: Tasmania. “A dozen top photographers overcome the challenges of nature and technology on the assignment of a lifetime…”
In April, 2008, a group of internationally renowned photographers will travel to the end of the world, literally, to the remote island of Tasmania. Their mission is to road test specialized digital photography software designed by Adobe while capturing images from one of the world’s most mysterious and varied geographic locations.
Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, photographers will upload, sort, keyword, adjust, and output their Raw images while still working in the field.
Sounds right up my alley although I’m a little peaved that they are using a logo that’s very similar to one I designed in 1999 for a local redevelopment campaign (left). Oh well, they can make it up to me by offering me an all-expense-paid-plus-full-dayrate position on the next Lightroom Adventure. Seems only fair.
I’m still tinkering away at my new website. Today I’ve added the first gallery to the images section. I chose to start with a gallery of photos I took in South Korea and will be adding others soon. This one is a multimedia slideshow but others will be more traditional image galleries so that there will be something for every bandwidth. I’ll let you know as others go online but I imagine this will be an ongoing process.
A couple of other items of interest: First, there are new regulations going into effect today for those flying with lithium batteries. There is some information about this on the TSA site. Also this information on SafeTravel.dot.gov. The basics seem to be that you can’t pack spare lithium batteries in your checked luggage anymore. You can still have them in your carry-on luggage as long as they are packed correctly and meet the other lithium content requirements. More joy at the airport. I guess I’ll no longer be cutting down on the weight of my carry-on by checking my batteries.
And lastly, this item from the New York Times’ site on the buzz words of 2007. It seems a couple of new photography-related words cropped up this year. My favorite? Kinnear:
kinnear v.
To take a candid photograph surreptitiously, especially by holding the camera low and out of the line of sight. Coined in August by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee of the Yarn Harlot blog when she attempted to take a photograph during an encounter with the actor Greg Kinnear at an airport.
I do that all the time (just not of Greg Kinnear). Now I know what to call it.
Here it is, almost 2008. Just down to hours, really. Almost time to crack open the bubbly. I know… that’s not REAL bubbly — it’s a lovely bottle of Rat Bastard soda that I enjoyed a couple of months ago at Pops on Route 66 in Arcadia, Oklahoma.
And what better way to start the new year than with a brand new blog? Bear with me while I work the bugs out of this thing and my new website. Lots of work to do yet. I’ll try to keep the mess to a minimum.
Enjoy New Year’s Eve, everyone. Drive safely or don’t drive at all. I’ll see you back here in 2008!