Announcing my first photography show – opening Feb 6th

You’re all cordially invited to my first photography show. It’s running from February 6th until March 4th at Java Joe’s North Cafe in the De Vargas Shopping Center, and there’s an opening reception on the first night (Feb 6th), from 5pm – 7pm.

I’ll mainly be showing my geometric/architectural images from around Santa Fe, but there’ll be one wall devoted to black and white children’s portraits.

Needless to say I’m really looking forward to it, and hope to see you there (free coffee included).

(details after the jump)

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Winter Morning

Out this morning in my pyjamas to take some shots around the garden as the sun came up on the couple of inches of fresh snow we got overnight.

A good job I was out early, as it’s now 11.20am and most of the snow’s already melted.

Joining me was our dog Corrie, who loves the snow.

Embedding the slick Photoshelter slideshow into the post. Let’s see how it goes.

Integrating Photoshelter and WordPress – a quick guide

As a photographer and web designer, I’ve built my own photo sites and ones for other photographers, and I’ve always been frustrated, until I just combined Photoshelter with WordPress.

The problem is that photographers’ sites often need to combine both excellent photo handling and display, and also good handling of text-based pages.

Some photographers’ site solutions (especially Flash-based ones such as Evrium) don’t let you have more than the most basic amount of information about you – say 1 page of a bio, and 1 page of contact information.

But photographers might want to have a blog, details on the type of work they do, articles they’ve written . . . all kinds of stuff. This helps them differentiate themselves and do well in search engine listings.

But they also want great galleries, slideshows and if possible, the ability to sell prints or license their work right away. (more…)

“Figuring out your true passion” – coming up with a new business plan

As we enter a new year, it’s a time for reflecting on what happened over the last 12 months, and making plans for the next.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what goals I should have for the year, and how I might reach them. Some of these are practical-sounding – like working out my budget for the photography and web design sides of my work – but once you start asking these sort of questions, they quickly end up bringing up much larger issues.

I’m in the fortunate position of working for myself, and last year I made money building and maintaining websites, taking photos, training photographers in Aperture, and writing articles. But I have to admit none of it was really based on a detailed business plan.

So I was very interested when I came across a great article by photographer Doug Menuez about how he came to redefine the work he did and enjoyed a more fulfilled (and more successful) life as a result. (more…)

Christmas Greetings from Clearing the Vision

Early start chez nous, with Finn deciding 6am was a pretty good time to start the day.

Even after stalling her, it was still dark when we made it to the tree.

Merry Christmas to those celebrating today.

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM early review

Meet my new favourite lens – the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM prime.

It’s fast, focuses quickly and seems to share with the 28mm f/1.8 a richness of color that makes ho-hum shots look good and good shots look great.

(If I ever take any great shots, I’ll be fascinated to see what it does with them).

(More after the jump)
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