insights into photography
With another terrific week in the world of photography passing us by, we find Toad Hollow Photography has been searching high and low in all corners of the internet for links to tutorials, reviews, special features, great photography and really interesting blogs to share with everyone here. This week’s list features some really interesting articles and tutorials, as well as some incredible special features. And, of course, we’ve got a comprehensive list of great images to check out as well, all carefully collected and curated by the Toad himself! From Toad via Lighstalking
Here is a taste
TUTORIALS
A Mathematical Look at Focal Length and Crop Factor – this in-depth piece takes a close look at the physics and mathematics behind varying focal lengths and sensor sizes in modern DSLR cameras. This highly technical piece explains it all in great depth, and even for those who don’t fully grasp all the points being discussed the article will still reveal a few of the secrets behind this topic.
New Fuji 55-200mm lens for IR! – Mark Hilliard writes a comprehensive article taking a close look at the new Fuji 55-200mm lens for IR applications. Mark includes detailed notes as well as a handful of example photographs to visually show the topics being discussed.
Orbs — the easy way… – this is a terrific article complete with sample images and screenshots to take the reader through the entire process step-by-step. This great tutorial by Sherry Galey gives an in-depth look into the process for the reader, one that can expand your repertoire in post-processing.
9 Low Light Photography Tips for Professional Photos – this is a basic, common-sense list of tips and tricks for low light photography. This challenging genre introduces it’s own series of problems to overcome, and all the highlights behind these issues are covered in this article.
Click Here: 88 Amazing Photography Links That You Won’t Want to Miss
I am not sure how I missed these when they were first published on the Denver Post site, glad I went wandering around and found such a wonderful set of unusual and atmospheric images, Emilio Morenatti is a photographer I will follow in the future
Emilio Morenatti began his career in Spain covering both national and international events. In 2003, he traveled to Afghanistan as a correspondent to cover the war and the fall of the Taliban for the Associated Press. He was sent to the Middle East to cover the conflict for the AP in 2005. In 2006, while covering the conflict in Gaza City, he was kidnapped by gunmen before being released unharmed a day later. He is currently based in Pakistan and covers Central Asia for the Associated Press. He was named 2008 Newspaper Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International. Below is a collection of his images from 2008 and so far in 2009.
A Pakistani Kushti wrestler washes himself after a training at the Champion Khalu Behalwan wrestling club in the Old City of Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008. Kushti, an Indo-Pakistani form of wrestling, is several thousand years old and is a national sport in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Hamas security officers stand guard as thousands of Hamas supporters gather during a rally in Gaza city, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007. Hamas marked the 20th anniversary of its founding with a huge rally Saturday, sending a message of strength and defiance even as it is struggling to keep Gaza afloat. (AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti)
An Afghan man carries a bundle of balloons as he walks along a street on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Pakistani men pray at Waseer Khan mosque during Friday prayers in Lahore Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2009. Pakistani officials appealed Friday to the opposition to join talks aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis, even as police stepped up a crackdown on activists trying to reach the capital for a planned anti-government protest. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A Pakistani vendor hangs a poster of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at his shop in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday Feb. 13, 2008. Pakistan’s ruling party expressed confidence Wednesday that it will form a new government after next week’s parliamentary elections, despite surveys pointing to a strong victory by President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Pakistani court scribe Ruhman Khan, uses an old machine to type forms at his lawyer’s office in the Civil Court of Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. For two years many lawyers regularly clashed with police, staged hunger strikes and walked off their job to pressure the country’s rulers to reinstate the deposed Supreme Court chief justice fired by Musharraf in 2007. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s announcement that Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would resume his duties as the chief justice on March 22 headed off a political crisis that threatened to destabilize a government facing a teetering economy and rising Islamist violence. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
a Pakistani lawyer runs away from tear gas fired by police officers outside the residence of the country’s deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mahmood Chaudhry during a protest in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti/FILE)
There are about 50 images in this gallery and all are worth your time
It’s hard to pin down where John Francis Peters might be at any given time. Upstate New York, China, Mexico… and that was just last year.
“Travel has been a big part of my life since childhood and engrained in my experience as a photographer,” recalls Peters. “Part of my focus on photography as a career path and artistic practice is that it fit perfectly with the need to explore and expand my understanding of the world.”
John Francis Peters is a freelance documentary, portrait and lifestyle photographer currently residing in Los Angeles, California. His travels define both his personal projects and assignment work- for clients like The FADER Magazine, TIME, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, etc. The collection of images presented here, entitled Glimmers, is a condensed edit of Peters’ own blog. These photos drift across time and space, representing not only the myriad cultures pictured, but also Peters’ own personal photographic journal. He hopes to eventually develop this body of work into a book or gallery installation.
“The title comes from the idea that photographs are happening all the time, and those moments which catch our attention are part of the magical experience we have in collaboration with the world,” writes Peters. “I also think the series reinforces for me that a true beauty of photography is it’s ineffable ability to guide us to and speak about the multidimensional world we live in.”
Many of these images are isolated, in-between glances away from the decisive moments prized in photojournalism, but this is where Peters finds commonality among such disparate subject matter.
“I do think we as a global community have more similarities than recognized, especially in regards to the subtleties in daily living,” writes Peters. “Those aspects we all share in common are really important to me and my work process because I feel they are the essence of the human condition… I think by making images about those subtleties, it may help bridge some of the perceived boundaries between our cultures and societies.” – Patrick Traylor, ptraylor@denverpost.com
Ray, Los Angeles, CA 2011
Baptism, Yantai, China 2012
A Room Filled With Corn, Les Cayes, Haiti 2009
Amy, Los Angeles, CA 2013
George W. Bush Inauguration, Washington DC 2004
Daily Information is a pretty unique part of Oxford; starting out as printed sheets of everything going on in Oxford and delivered to every college, cafe, library etc. it has morphed into a website and the only place to go to find anything of interest happening in Oxford. The massive amount of information is handled by the most dedicated bunch of individuals who populate the website with all sorts of information and goodies. They have been further promoting all things Oxford in a weekly podcast and we at OSP Towers were asked to go along and give a few tips on photography for inclusion in this week’s broadcast. Unfortunately our verbosity and all round excess of knowledge was just too much for their regular podcast so the created a special just for us.
You can catch this podcast and hear all the tips we brought with us on that day, of course we have more to share but we do that here on our own site. That is unless they ask us to go back for another session.
So to hear rather than read, The Daily Info Special Feature Podcast go here
and here to brighten up your weekend is a picture
This useful article on lens corrections in Photoshop on the SJP blog might help you to understand lens aberrations
This article sums up photography in the basic terms that almost anyone could understand, well maybe not actually, but if you have done some study or taken one of our courses it will make sense. The ‘infographic’ horrid word, tries to establish what anyone aspiring to make photographs either recreationally or eventually vocationally might need to consider. The best advice it offers is practise. Anyway if you want to know everything about anything go here
I visited Syria in 2009, I travelled around guided by John Wreford a great friend and photographer. The people were welcoming, warm and generous. I am therefore, deeply saddened by what has happened. These pictures add to my sadness. Found on the excellent Denver Post site
As part of World Refugee Day, Save the Children commissioned photojournalist Moises Saman to document the sleeping conditions of Syrian refugee children. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, 1.6 million Syrian refugees have fled the country. More than half of those refugees are children whose families are forced to cross borders into Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt and seek shelter in minimal and overcrowded structures. Saman visited refugees in Jordan and Lebanon to show where these children sleep.
Faysal, 6, waking up inside his family’s tent a settlement in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)
Haytham, 7, and his brother Wassim, 5, inside their tent in a settlement in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)
Aziz, 8, (right) and his sister Aisha (left), both suffering from cerebral palsy, inside their family’s one-room house in East Amman, an area where a large number of Syrian refugees have settled. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)
Khoder, 10, stands behind a mosquito net inside a temporary house in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. (Moises Saman/Magnum Photos for Save the Children)
Firecracker is an online platform dedicated to supporting european women photographers.
Despite many fantastic women working with photographic media, the industry continues to be dominated by male counterparts.
Firecracker assists the promotion of women photographers by showcasing their work in a series of monthly online gallery features.
Photographers are brought to our attention via a network of industry professionals and guest curator spots from high profile individuals.
In 2012 the annual Firecracker Photographic Grant was launched to assist a woman photographer born or residing in Europe with the completion of a documentary photographic project.
One photographer featured on the site is
ALYS TOMLINSON, her work is wonderful and beguiling and definitely worth checking out further, you can visit her site here
©Alys Tomlinson
©Alys Tomlinson
©Alys Tomlinson
The Firecracker Photographic Grant is an annual award providing funding for a female photographer to aid with the completion of a documentary photographic project.
The inaugural Firecracker Photographic Grant was awarded in September 2012 to British photographer Jo Metson Scott for her project ‘The Grey Line’, a sensitive documentation of soldiers speaking out against the Iraq war.
“Receiving the Firecracker grant was a huge endorsement for me and for a piece of work I’d been struggling to find the right platform for. The award gave the work great visibility and the grant itself, as well as the support from Genesis, was instrumental in the final stages of bringing the work together as a book. Beyond being a grant, Firecracker connected me to a supportive group of photography professionals, who gave me the confidence to pull together a project I’d been working on alone for 5 years.”
See Metson Scott’s winning work here
Through a combination of self-initiated fundraising and with the generous support of Genesis Imaging the 2013 Grant fund will be a minimum financial contribution of £1,000 cash plus £1,000 of professional printing, mounting and framing services from Genesis Imaging.
Applications are open to women photographers born or residing in Europe and submissions are judged by an independent panel of industry specialists from a cross section of disciplines and sectors. Applications are subject to a £10 application fee, with all funding contributing to the Grant total.
Applications for the 2013 Grant are now open and close 28th July 2013.
Oxford School of Photography 