I have moved my blog from WordPress.com to my own host. Why? I get more freedom to do what I want. I am not limited by few blog themes offered by WordPress.com. I do not have to pay to be able to edit theme files. I can have Google Analytics and Google AdSense on my blog. The list just goes on. The move itself was not difficult at all. Install WordPress on the new web server, export the contents of the blog from WordPress.com and import into new one. All done in 30 minutes. I’m a happy camper now.

The question was – what to do with this newly gained freedom? Themes were the obvious choice. After a prolonged search I settled on a ‘desk mess’ theme for a while. You probably have seen it. It was the one with an iPhone and a cup of tea in the header. But somehow I was not entirely happy with it.

Everything changed when I came across www.smashingmagazine.com website. It is a virtual goldmine for all things web related. Themes, icons, design tips. It has it all. It is there that I’ve discovered few nice themes. In the end it came down to two of them. One, with beautiful graphics. The other, had no graphics at all. One supported the widgets, the other did not. One was a real eye candy, so was the other. Decisions, decisions.

In the end I settled on the minimalistic ASCII theme. Somehow it appeals to me on some sort of subconscious level. It reminds me of the early days of the Internet. Days, when one created complex email sigs with ASCII pictures, using vi editor (still my favorite BTW). So, there you have it. I am an old, vi loving, Unix junkie. And proud of it.

BTW, I am now enjoying unlimited data transfer, unlimited storage, unlimited sub-domains and many more ‘unlimited’ things . And all for less than a price of a good cup of java per month. I guess this financial crisis/meltdown has its good points.

This is a recommended reading for anyone interested in fashion photography, lighting and techniques. It is a fairly new blog (two months or so) but it seems like it is off to a good start.

Personally I am not aspiring to be a fashion photographer myself but there is a wealth of information there that any budding photographer could use in their endeavors. Once again – highly recommended.

Bealyn Beauty Originally uploaded by FashionPhotographyBlog.com

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Without wax,
yOOrek (posting from Flickr™)

On a slightly different note, all is coming nicely together for me on the photography front. LR2.1 has been released recently. I do not experience any problems with it whatsoever. LR export plugins are doing their job of uploading the photos to Flickr™ or Zenfolio very nicely. All my uploaded photos have proper title, complex, automatically generated caption, plus a discrete watermark is applied (and I am not talking about the copyright text in the right bottom corner). I have to admit that my photographic work flow has evolved into something I’m very happy and content with.

To make things even better, after the move, when unpacking some boxes I didn’t even realized still existed, I came across an old set of Cokin filters I used in my film camera days. And guess what? The filter adapter is 72mm (perfect for my Sigma 10-20), the stash includes couple of soft edge ND grad filters (recently I was thinking of getting them). A polarizer (although it is not circular polarizer so this is of limited, if any use on digital camera). And I thought they were all lost when we moved from the land of OZ to Switzerland.

Life is full of surprises.

Maya (B&W) Originally uploaded by yOOrek

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Without wax,
yOOrek (posting from Flickr™)

The long-awaited Mozilla Firefox 3 for Mac and Windows, which emerged from beta at 10AM Pacific today, is the latest web browser to support the colour managed display of photos with embedded ICC profiles. That’s the good news. The bad news is it’s turned off by default. Here’s how to turn it on.

Visit Rob’s site to get full instructions on how to turn it on. For those impatient souls out there here is an executive version -

• Get the Firefox 3
• Get the color management add-on
• Turn it on
• Check that it is working

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Without wax,
yOOrek

Basically, depth of field refers to the section of a photograph, from the nearest to the furthermost points from the camera, which appears to be in sharp focus.
John Shaw’s Landscape Photography, John Shaw, 1994

I came across DoFMaster website by accident. Of course I knew what DoF is. I’ve even used the marks on the lenses (in good old film days) to be able to determine what my DoF would be at any given aperture. Unfortunately those days are gone. Modern lenses do not provide DoF marks any more. Bummer!

DOFMaster to the rescue. This software (available for Windows, PalmOS, iPhone, iPod Touch and on-line) allows you to calculate the DoF for any given focal length and aperture. Quite useful. What I especially find very attractive about this software is the fact that you can access it on the road with your Palm, iPhone or iPod Touch. For those of you who do not have any of these gadgets there is a printed chart available.

Give it a try at http://www.dofmaster.com/

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Without wax,
yOOrek

Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, blue, black, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light energy versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.

Definitely worth reading, with a lot of references and links to some other articles.

I get asked all the time – by professionals as well as amateurs – how I get my images to look so sharp – so clean and crispy. Well, there really is no secret (well, there’s one secret you’ll see in a minute). Getting that crisp look is a combination of several factors. I hope this brief explanation helps, let me know if it does!

A very good article on how to improve your photography. Seven steps to sharp, crispy images that simply pop.

“This site is devoted to teaching photographic lighting principles and product expertise. Learn how lighting equipment is set up to produce great results when shooting portraits and products. Follow these easy-to-use lessons to learn the secrets of great lighting techniques.”

“If tripods need all the help you can give them to render absolute sharpness in your images, imagine a monopod with a single leg.”

“You may have wondered how come some of your images look ‘soft’ or blurred.
Quite often it is simply due to improper handholding technique.”