Quick Hit Monday: More Wedding/Portrait Photo Blogs In One Place; Up Close and Personal Inauguration Shots: Jim Divitale Great Site; A Picture A Day K

Good Morning Everybody,
Hope everyone had a SUPER (bowl) weekend. We were able to get our cars dug out from our HUGE snow storm by Friday and ventured out onto the roads over the weekend. All the stores were packed. Between Super Bowl parties to prepare and what I would suspect was cabin fever got the best of everyone, the much warmer weather gave everyone the opportunity to hit the roads and venture to the stores.

I love the snow. Not so much the ice but it too was BEAUTIFUL. When the sun back-lit the ice covered trees, it looked like"acres of diamonds" everywhere. It was truly majestic. While my heart goes out to some friends in the southern portion of Kentucky still without power. Not Fun!!

Other than enjoying our mini spring thaw, I put a few more hours in on the book this weekend. I feel it's really coming together. All my "proof readers" say it's packed full of info. I'm hoping to wrap it this week, I know you've heard that before, so I can finalize the tour plans. Anyway, things are busy as usual but in my weekend web cruise I found some good places to visit when you get some free time on your hands. Here we go...

More Wedding/Portrait Photo Blogs In One Place; Up Close and Personal Inauguration Shots: Jim Divitale's Great Site; And A Little Geek Speak

Fresh Blog Contest
Leading off the Quick Hit Monday list this morning let me tell you about the Professional Photographers of America's Fresh Blog Contest going on right now. Anyone can enter and so far over 400 have. You have about 6 more days to enter if you would like to participate. It's a pretty cool collection of regular photo-blogs like DPT, but also includes a lot of studio blogs too that have some nice content. Here is the link. Lots of good wedding photo ideas available. Voting starts on from Feb. 8, 2009 at 12 midnight EST, to Feb. 15, 2009, at 12 midnight EST. I hope you give me a thumbs up.

Up Close and Personal Inauguration Shots
I had my buddy, Craig Weiglein of Maison Hill studio send me a great link about Washington based photog, Chuck Kennedy [link], getting these great shots from the inauguration because of a special camera set up right at the podium where President Obama was sworn in. It's a great read about tenacity and ingenuity. Here is the link.

The story is told by his friend, Greg Gibson. It seems Greg has won two Pulitzer Prizes himself and has now turned his cameras towards brides and grooms in the Washington D.C area. I would think the Pulitzer Prizes would offer some booking incentive. Anyway, check out Greg's site right here too - more good stuff.

Jim Divitale's Great Site
I've known my buddy, Jim Divitale for many years. Jim is a terrific commercial photographer hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. Well anyway, Jim was hit by the blogging bug, too. His site has turned into a great repository of all things Photoshop, Lightroom, HDR, and more. Here is the link to Jim's site. Jim has been an instructor for over 30 years, holds the honor of Canon Explorer Of Light, and lectures extensively around the world.

Anyway, take a thorough cruise through Jim's new site and be sure not to miss his old site too [link ]. The info is thorough, solid, highly informative information - enjoy the "Brain Fry."

And A Little Geek Speak - Everything You Wanted To Know About High Speed Flash Sync
Blogging buddy, Syl Arena, at Pixsylated.com has a great and very in depth post on the subject right here. I actually covered the topic right here at DigitalProTalk.com back in November, 2008. Here is the link to my video tutorial right here.

Anyway, this is one of those pieces of "Harry Potter magic" built into our new digital gear and is a great tool if we know how to use it. Syl really provides a thorough discussion, and one of the best on the subject that I have ever read. This is an absolute must read for the wedding photographer working in the high noon sun on a Saturday afternoon. Here is the article link right here. High Fives to Syl on the article.

Hey gang, that's it for me today. I've got a client landing in about 15 minutes so I've got to get movin'. Don't miss tomorrow's episode of Technique Tuesday - Lightroom 2 In Reverse. One of my favs, you are going to love it. See ya' then. -David