Urban Decay

The climb was worth it

Making and Using a Massive 27-Bulb, 4′ Diameter Ring Light

Photographer Dani Diamond is the man behind one of the most impressive ring lights we’ve ever laid eyes on. With 27 bulbs and at four feet in diameter, this continuous-lighting setup doesn’t play around.

And after getting more questions about the light than he could possibly reply to one at a time, he decided to create the above video, explaining how he built it, why he built it, and why it’s his most treasured piece of lighting gear.

Dani's video on YouTube

Read more from the source

Global Village

EyeEm update for iOS comes with EyeZoom

EyeEm, a photo sharing platform and image marketplace, has released an update to its iOS app which takes it closer to the recently-overhauled Android version. The redesign attempts to put more focus on the images by changing font sizes and moving controls around, and the new EyeZoom feature lets you zoom into images by tapping on them. For this purpose a higher-resolution version of each image is loaded in the background.

Read more from source

Global Village

Photoshop and Lightroom

IMO - this is about the best thing to come down the pike for photographers in a very, very long time.

Get the world's best photography tools for one incredible price. Photoshop CC and Lightroom are tightly integrated for a complete photography workflow across your desktop and mobile devices. Create composites in Photoshop on your iPad and refine on your desktop. Organize and enhance images in Lightroom on your iPhone. And automatically sync all your changes back to your Lightroom catalog.

Go to Adobe

NG"s Photo of the Day

On a tour of Wat Mahathat, a temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand, Your Shot member Julian Bound spotted a large stone Buddha head sitting encased in a tree. "Its roots are said to have grown around the sculpture during a time when the temple lay abandoned and overgrown," Bound writes. "Drawn to the uniqueness of the statue, I knelt down to take the shot as rich sunlight played across the Buddha's features, making sure to capture the ground before the tree to give depth and scale to the image." National Geographic

Global Village

Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts

Just a quick link here for a page I am accessing all the time.  Hope it comes in handy if you misplaced yours.

Lightroom Shortcuts

Global Village

New York from the edge of Central Park

New York from Central Park

Great Shot From Majeed Badizadegan

Image Source

Best space images of the month

Here are some of the most stunning space-related pictures captured during the last month – from salad greens to grow on Marsto a portrait of Spain from orbit.

Source

Using Neutral Density Filters

One of the biggest challenges landscape photographers face is that the sky is often much lighter than the landscape below. The difference in brightness can be equivalent to several stops and the level of contrast can extend beyond the sensor’s dynamic range. Consequently, if you meter correctly for the sky, the foreground will be too dark; but if you meter for the land, the sky will be overexposed and highlights washed out. Filtration is the only in-camera method of balancing the light in unevenly lit scenes.
Graduated ND filters are half clear, half coated; with a transitional zone where they meet. By aligning the transitional zone with the horizon, only the sky is affected by the filter’s ND coating. Doing so allows photographers to ‘hold back’ the sky in order to balance the contrast in light between sky and foreground. By using a ‘grad’, it is possible to bring the entire scene within the sensor’s dynamic range – ensuring detail is retained in both shadow and highlight areas.

See and read all about it here from Manfrotto School of Xcellence

Global Village

28 Breathtaking Photos Of Lighthouses That Have Stood The Test Of Time

Amazing Lighthouse Images

The lighthouse is a near-universal symbol of safety and guidance that has helped mariners find their way home since ancient times. Although they are gradually outliving their usefulness, they are still epic monuments to human ingenuity and to their own resilience. Because August 7th is National Lighthouse Day in the U.S., we decided to share some amazing lighthouse photos with our readers.

Ancient mariners were often guided home by bonfires built on hilltops, which were later elevated and evolved into lighthouses. These gradually grew taller and stronger and moved closer to the sea. Most lighthouses currently still standing are marvels of practical and resilient architecture and engineering, brushing off the worst that the seas have to offer. While their guiding beacons may soon cease to sweep across the coastal night sky, we can still appreciate how beautiful and epic these wonderful buildings look.

Global Village Fine Art

Manfrotto Compact Tripods

More and more photographers are using tripods in their photography adventures.  However, even with carbon fiber they can be a pain to haul around.  Manfrotto has gotten a step closer to helping this task become effortless.

Check out the link below.

Manfrotto Compacts

Global Village Fine Art

Adobe revamps Connect's collaboration features

With videoconferencing features now built in to dozens of communications platforms, companies that focus on business-class videoconferencing are pushing their offerings upmarket. As part of this trend, Adobe announced Thursday a wide range of upgrades to its Connect system. The latest version, Adobe Connect 9.3, will be released at the end of the summer. (A specific release date has not been set.)

Adobe senior product marketing manager Rocky Mitarai says that Adobe continues to make inroads into a market in which Cisco’s Webex Meetings and Citrix GoToMeeting have become synonymous with web conferencing. “Our strategy still remains to go beyond the in-meeting experience and think about end-to-end solutions,” says Mitarai.

In addition to the usual polishing upgrades to fit and finish, Connect 9.3 is launching with major enhancements to three facets of the application: Upgraded social media integration and sharing, significantly enhanced whiteboarding, and a variety of improvements to its screen sharing utility.

Deeper social media integration

Tying social media into video conferences has long been a focus of Connect, and with 9.3 that integration is getting a big upgrade. In Adobe Connect 9.2, Adobe integrated its system with Google+ and Facebook, so when webinar hosts set up an event, attendees could register for it using their existing social media profiles (instead of having to create yet another user ID). Mitarai says this feature reduces the attendee abandonment rate, a perennial problem for those hosting large-scale webinars. With Connect 9.3, says Mitarai, you can “essentially crowdsource the promotion of your events” through custom landing pages that incorporate a variety of social media sharing buttons.

Source

A word on social media and mobile

Mobile Social Marketing

Paul Revere riding from a different angle

source of above photo:
 http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/paul-reveres-ride/

I decided to take a different approach and a different angle in this photo of Paul Revere's ride in Boston, just off Hanover Street.  I have shot the image from the front as have 5 million tourists over the years, and thought this view might be interesting.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Just for fun I decided to include the "Midnight Ride" story from the openlettersmonthly site as well... I myself had not read or heard it in many, many years.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Recompose Images Using Photoshop Content Aware Move

When things aren’t as you’d like them to be, and you just can’t move that windmill over a little, Photoshop Content Aware Move comes to the rescue.

Source

Introducing the power of Adobe to 500px…

Here at 500px, we love delivering the best deals to our community. So we’ve teamed up with Adobe to bring you a must-have package for photographers and artists. The Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan includes Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom, the world’s best imaging tools. Organize, edit, enhance, and share images on your desktop or mobile device anytime, anywhere. Get access to all these features from Adobe with your 500px Awesome account—all for the special price of $165 per year, just for you. To learn more about this great deal, visit our Upgrade page.

To inspire you, we culled 36 eye-catching images of enhanced places, faces, and moments. From reality-defying composites to mind-bending retouches, we hope these images will inspire you to expand your story-telling skills and post-processing workflow.

When it comes to blending art and photography, imagination (and technology, thanks to Adobe) sure goes a long way.

Photo of the Day

Within the city limits of Philadelphia lies an enclave of dedicated surfers who high tail it out of the city at 5am, drive over an hour each way just to catch a few waves during a swell, which, in the Northeast, is from Fall-Spring. Philadelphia-based photographer Chris Sembrot was inspired to photograph "urban surfers" by a few surfer friends who, Sembrot says, "took me under their wings and suffered with the humiliation (that I still bring when I go out with them) of helping a newbie."
Photo District News

The Impressionism Seen Through 50 Paintings

by G. Fernández - theartwolf.com

No artistic period has been as commented or discussed as Impressionism. But, as an image is worth a thousand words, theartwolf.com has decided to showcase 50 paintings to resume the very best of this fascinating Art movement

GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE:
 "Paris Street, rainy day"1877

When talking about Impressionism, an error is often committed when assigning to this movement a series of painters who nothing or almost nothing had in common with it -Rousseau, Redon-, or others who, despite having felt an early attraction to the new movement, soon separated from it -Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne- or even others who, though being generally considered as representative members of this movement, can not be called "pure impressionists"

Edgar Degas (French, b.1834, d.1917);
DANCER IN HER DRESSING ROOM
 (danseuse dans sa loge) (detail); Circa 1879

In this last group, we have to differentiate between those who developed his style before the impressionist dawn - Edouard Manet- and those whose interests led them to search even beyond the Impressionism - Degas, Renoir -. If we want to look for the "pure", essential impressionist painters, those who developed their impressionist style without interferences from any other style, the list -with the risks of using a dangerously simplistic purism- would be reduced to only three names: Monet -the real Michelangelo of the impressionist era-, Pissarro -the great chronicler of the rural life- and Sisley. Nevertheless, in this list we will include not only the "pure" Impressionist painters, but also those related to the so-called Post-Impressionism. We all accept that Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin... are not truly Impressionist painters, but their relation with that Art movement is more than evident

Remembering George Eastman, founder of Kodak, inventor of roll film

July 12, 2014 /Photography News/ Born 160 years ago, on July 12, 1854,  George Eastman was an American inventor and philanthropist. He founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. Roll film was also the basis for the invention of motion picture film in 1888 by the world's first filmmaker Louis Le Prince, and a few years later by his followers Léon Bouly, Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès.

Great photo

"Good Morning Reitdiephaven" by Pawel Kucharski: http://goo.gl/zIBZVe