Quick Hit Monday: New Sponsors-LowePro and Peachpit; Used To Be Worth $2 Mil; Color Composition; Better Flash Control; and A New Blog

Good Morning Everybody,

I hope you had a great weekend. We caught up on a few things at the studio and I worked on my program for my Friday Photo School presentation coming up this Friday. For the presentation we are going to try something that has never been tried before on the program. I’m really looking forward to it!  I'll fill you in as we get closer to the show.

Update On My Captured By The Light 2010 Tour- LowePro and Peachpit On Board

LowePro:  I am excited to announce that LowePro [link], makers of the best camera bags on the planet, have come on board to support the tour. In fact, they have offered to give away one of the most popular (which just happens to be my favorite) style bags, the Pro Roller x200 or x300, at each location. That should really make "door prize" time a lot of fun.

Peachpit: That's right, Peachpit Press [link], the publisher of the best books on photography (mine included) Photoshop, Lightroom, and lots more are also on board to support the tour. Peachpit also has some terrific give-a-ways lined up to be awarded at each location.

Hey, it's a kick to have these two new sponsors on board!

$200 Million Up In Photographic Smoke

OK, I heard the story last Friday, but wanted to check it out for myself. Here is the deal. It seems that Rick Norsigian picked up 65 photographic glass plates at a garage sale for $45. The story goes that he even talked the seller down a few more more bucks before he sealed the deal. Here is the link to the original story.

Next it looked like the plates were Ansel Adams plates from his early years. These plates were supposed to have been lost in a garage fire years ago. They were initially valued at over $200 million dollars if indeed they were the original Ansel Adams images! Wow! sounds like the ultimate find for the Antiques Road Show to me.

Things were looking really good for Rick but then Miriam Walton, an 87 year old woman from Oakland, California woman, saw the story on TV and exclaimed, "I'm looking at the picture that's hanging on my wall and I knew that Ansel Adams didn't take them," Miriam Walton said. "I knew my Uncle Earl took them."   Yep, when she saw the images, she thought they looked a lot like her Uncle Earl's photographs. Here is the link for the follow up story.

Turns out they may not be the famous Adams images after all, but heck, thinking you were a $200 millionaire had to feel good for a few days. I'm thinking Uncle Earl must have been one darn good photographer. I, for one, would like to see a few of his images printed just to see how good the guy was ;~)

Composing With Color – Seeing Beyond The Lines

You know, one thing I enjoy doing on the weekend when I have a few minutes is just catching up with some of my favorite blogs. One of those blogs happens to be one of the old standards - Luminous-Landscape.com [link]. I've been following them for years an have to saw they offer some of the richest content available when it comes to photography, lens, printing, and just about anything photographic.

They've recently posted an article entitled, Part 3, "Composing With Color". Here is the link right here. As many of you know I am a big fan of composition. Composing with color just struck me as something I wanted to check out. Alan Briot, the author of the article, goes into great detail in explaining his approach to the subject.

He gets pretty technical too - you may feel the need to read and re-read this article a time or two to take it all in. I enjoyed the read - hope you do too. Oh, like I said, this is Part 3 on the topic. Links to Parts 1and 2 appear at the end of his post.

New Rogue Flash Benders – Better Flash Control

My good buddies at ExpoImaging just introduced their brand new Rogue Flash Benders [link] and I think they are looking pretty cool. They are designed to work with just about all the shoe mount flashes on the market. I've just unpacked the large Rogue Flash Bender and have been playing with it over the weekend.

What I especially like about the large version is the versatility it shows in really controlling the characteristics and direction of light coming out these small shoe mount flashes. Sure, I can bounce the light off it's large reflecting surface, but that has never been my favorite way to use flash modifiers.

The large version lets me bend and shape the light easily and quickly to give me a great off camera flash result with an on-camera flash. Look for a follow up post showing how I plan to work them into my shooting technique.

Hey, Did You Hear - There's A New Blog In Town

And a good one it is. I received an email from my good friend, Denis Reggie, about a week ago pointing me towards his new blog, Denis Reggie MOMENTS. Here is the link right here. If you don't know, Denis does the biggest and best weddings around the world.

Anyway, he is sharing his stories about his best wedding and portrait experiences. He recently posted the-rest-of-the-story behind the book cover photography session for the cover of legendary senator Ted Kennedy's memoirs entitled, "True Compass".

Anyway, his style is relaxed and upbeat and a joy to read as he gives us a nice peak at some of the best weddings in the world and what goes on behind the scenes from a photographers point of view. Be sure and check it out.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. It's back to my PowerPoint and polishing of my Friday presentation. Have a good one and I'll see you tomorrow for a very cool Technique Tuesday episode.

Hope to see you then, David