Home       Tutorials       Quick-Tips       Reviews       About       Contact       Podcast       Register

» Tomorrow is Photowalk day

The sole reason why I’m not posting a news post today is because I’m loading and gearing up for the Photowalk tomorrow which I’m leading here in Gothenburg, Sweden! I want to hope everyone has a good day, filled with nice shots and all before I go to bed now. To everyone here, see you tomorrow; for everyone else, have an amazing day and get to know a lot of new friends. And remember, no whining!

» Normal Wednesday Newsflash

For some reason the Wednesday posts are most important to me and above everything, I try to get something in at Wednesdays, so here are the news:

• An important topic raised today by Chris Coyer over at CSS-Tricks is that you not only backup your computer but also your website. Don’t let it be enough that your host takes backups (and they should really do that or consider switching). Be sure to do backups yourself as well occasionally to protect your website the most! Go ahead and vote in the poll over at Chris’s site how you do it.
   
• I want to sincerely thank Smashing Magazine for including my Creative Suite Tips & Tricks podcast in their post today about screencasting and how to start, the tools and well how to do it. The podcast was listed among some of the greatest software podcasts out there and I’m really happy about that! It’s a great article so if you are interested, go and read it today.
   
• A new update of the RSS feed reader of the Mac, NetNewsWire has been released which fixes among other items a startup crash. Download the update for free through software update.

» It’s the Monday news!

Here’s the Monday news (apart from that schools back again for me):

• First off WordPress 2.6.1 was released at the end of last week. It’s mainly a bug fix update but is recommended nonetheless for all users. Get it from WordPress.org!
   
• Secondly, I know my episode of the podcast is just a little bit late right now. I’m going to record the episode right after this blog post is finished and then post it up for y’all! Trying my best to get it up tonight!
   
• It’s PhotoWalk week! It’s this Saturday the 23rd August. The Scott Kelby Worldwide PhotoWalk! I’m hosting one here in beautiful Gothenburg, Sweden and well, all I can say is that it’s coming up really quickly, so, there are still a few spots left over here last time I looked. If any of you reading this are going to my walk, then you should look out for an email tomorrow with contact information and more detailed location info. Please check your emails for that soon.
   
• Over at WP-Candy today they had a ncie article talking with the subject, "Does WordPress Scare your clients?". It was a very interesting read and is very true indeed. It’s well worth the time to read through.
   
• As a final note, I hate spam. They are filling up more than usual right now and even though I’ve got a good spam filter, they get in the junk mail which gets large and emptied very frequently. SPAM sucks and doesn’t do anyone any good!

That’s it for today!

» Wednesday Artist Interview: Phil Dawson

This week I have the fortune to be able to post the interview with the talented photographer Phil Dawson. Phil is a photographer with a base in shooting portraits, weddings and events and he does that really good as you see from the photos here It’s a really good interview so do continue to read it!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

As a Photographer, my areas of commisioned work covers sports and anything with people, from Social Events to Weddings, I really have a strong passion for Wedding and Portraiture. My style is starting lean strongly towards contemporary wedding photography.  Though nothing can be quite as relaxing as sitting waiting for the sun set/rise with a camera.

Do you have any formal training/what is your background in art?

I don’t have any formal qualifcations, and I would advise anybody wanting to work as a professional, that they study business and accounting, and study photography in your personal time.  Photography is a skill that you show not through a certificate but through your portfolio.  I started in photography assisting my brother shooting weddings and portraits, like many others, just carrying bags.

» Wednesday Design News

There will be an interview coming today as well but here are the news:

• Antonio Lupetti has posted a blog post about ten handwritten fonts that he really likes and uses a lot. The post is complete with a little idea how you can use it, a preview of each font and where to get it. Give it a read!
   
• Microsoft is putting out a new bug fix for Office for Mac. The two updates are supposed to increase stability and performance when using the applications in the office suite. As usual it’s the safest to get the updates from the Microsoft Office site.
   
• WordPress.com has launched a brand new, cleaner design. It really does look nice and kinda combines their old look with their new in a much nicer laid out way. Kudos to the designers!
   
• The great folks over at Smashing Magazine are always releasing cool free stuff. This time around they have a great looking set of 74 grunge photoshop brushes that are available for a free download. 

» Tuesday News Things

Okay, so I totally missed out on posting the news yesterday because of much work so I thought today might be a good catching up day

• Smashing Magazine posted a good article containing the (by the author) top ten usability highs of Mac OS X. It’s well written and well backed up and I must say I agree a lot with the article and author.
   
• Don’t forget to check out Scott Kelby’s blog the Photoshop Insider tomorrow! He is going to have the guest blogger Corey Barker doing a post! Corey is a pure creative genius when it comes to drawing and doing artwork so it’s gonna be really cool to see what’s he’s writing about! Mark your calendars for tomorrow.
   
• I saw this post over at PDNPulse yesterday where they followed on reporting that the amazing footprint fireworks at the Olympics this Friday were in fact a computer animation. It’s pretty shocking for especially one reason; How should we believe all we see from the Olympics now?
   
• Today is another day to start doing some backups on your photos/media files to make sure you’re covered if something goes wrong. Do it….now!

 

» Last minute no blog Monday!

I’ll admit it. I’m swamped today so you’ll just have to stay tuned for a blog Tuesday now that I can’t do any real Monday post this week. Cya back tomorrow!

» Saturday News Nuggets

Saturday ain’t stopping me from sharing some news nuggets with y’all!

• One of the most debated things this week has been the iPhone application, I Am Rich which was priced at $999 and just showed a mantra if you bought it. Now, I say was because Apply removed it from the Apple store for unknown reasons, something many think is not fair. Sure, it is pointless, but if you want to buy it, you shouldn’t be stopped. Anyway there are a full eight people who apparently bought this app before it came to an end. Where do people get their money from?
   
• An article in the New York Times this week caught my eye. In it they wrote that "Tibet" can’t be in any hotmail address and suspicions arised that it was political. Now Microsoft has spoken and said that it isn’t Tibet that is blocked but that they are blocking usernames with names of banks and other similar to prevent fraud. The word that’s being blocked is actually "Tib" since there’s a bank with that name. A bit too much? Perhaps so…
   
• I want to send out the congratulations to my buddy Will King who will be getting to shoot college football games all the coming year from the sidelines, official! Congrats Will!
   
• To finish off this Saturday I’m going to send you looking at an incredible article a member of the Photography Corner forum wrote. It’s about how to shoot animals in the best way! It’s really really good!

That’s it for today, stay tuned for some tutorials tomorrow!

» Artist Interview: Erik Ludloff

This week the interview is with a fellow Erik, Erik Ludloff. Erik’s a freelance designer and digital artist based out of California, USA. He’s got a strong portfolio and he’s a really good guy as well!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Erik and I’ve been a freelance designer and digital artist for about 18 years. Music has always been a big artistic influence for me. I started off as a wanna-be graffiti artist, but had a much better feel for pencil and paper than a spray can. I didn’t make the transition to wall art very well. I have always been a computer geek so I bought a scanner and CorelDRAW for my computer. I’d scan in my sketches and print out multiple copies, then hand color them with my Prismacolors.

In college I studied page layout and typography and began designing flyers for my friends’ bands to promote their upcoming shows. Eventually I started charging them to design cassette sleeves, album covers, and other band merchandise including logos, t-shirts, etc. After about a year, word spread around the local music scene and my foot was firmly in the design door. I saved up my design money and bought Photoshop. (Not because I didn’t like Corel, but just because all the print shops I worked with at the time told me I needed to switch.) It was a love/hate relationship at first, but now Photoshop and I are good friends.

Playing in Photoshop is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. I really enjoy photo collages, combining multiple images into a single piece of art. I’m not much of a photographer so I mainly use stock photos to play with. Occasionally I’ll incorporate one of my own photos and that’s always a big kick for me. I find myself taking photos of things just so I can use part of it in a collage later. Photoshop is such a powerful tool that I’m truly limited only by my imagination.

Do you have any formal training/what is your background in art?

My training has been mostly informal. I took a few college courses on advertising and design. It was great to get a solid foundation of the basics: color theory, typography, page layout, etc. I also read a lot of books, so I consider myself book-taught rather than self-taught. I’ve looked at tons of Photoshop tutorials online. It’s amazing the wealth of information available out there. NAPP has probably been the greatest learning tool for me recently.

» Monday Stuff

It’s another Monday, it’s another start of the week. I have a lot of things to share with you this week and It’s gonna be a really cool week. One of them is of course the artist interview as every week (and I’m not yet going to give away who it is). I’ve also got an article or two planned as well as some new tutorials! But let’s get started with some Monday Stuff!

• I do a lot of work with the WordPress publishing system and I really do like it. Obviously there are things I like to see in it, but overall it’s really really good and powerful. I do recommend it as a good and light cms + blog system. However it can be a daunting task to learn to customize any new script which is why I’m going to send you over to a series called Designing for WordPress by Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks!
   
• Since I’m going to be working with moving computers around a lot today I’m going to give you a tip or two there to make it easier. They may seem obvious, but so many don’t practise it. Tidy the cables up. Especially good in small areas where it’s much nicer to have some cable foldings to put them in to minimise mess and possible outage. Also, if you’re opening the computer to do any replacement, make sure to both pull out the plug and set the switch to 0. Also use a special bracelet to ground yourself. 
   
• Finally, I’m going to leave you with a podcast or two today. First off, go and check out my Creative Suite Tips and Tricks podcast for tutorials, weekly, on the entire creative suite. Then if you are a photographer, go and check out the Image Doctors from the Nikonians Talk Radio.