Art in Progress TV show

This show can be found in the HiFi channel. Can I say fantastic! Seeing what goes on with artists and their works is inspiring. 

I  had a few minutes today with a flower from the garden, this is what I came up with..



The setup for this image was like this...

The camera in use is a Panasonic GH2 with an ancient manual focus Canon 100mm FD macro lens. A polarizer was used to reduce glare from the leafs. Some fill in light was directed on the flower with the silver reflector. It was overcast when this image was taken, which was a good thing. I selected the tree bark as a background, although I would use something else next time. The image was processed in Photoshop using the Nik tools. The tree background was darkened leaving some detail there.

Art as an intellectual persuit or not...?

Art is a concept. Is it an intellectual pursuit or feelings and trial and error on behalf of most artists. I think the latter and those that follow art make it an intellectual concern.

A new HD background/wallpaper gallery has been created on www.artfulimages.ca.
Images can be downloaded for personal use. Enjoy!

Link to gallery is: http://smu.gs/1063ihj

The four sweet commands that fixed the boot on one of my Windows 8 laptops.
From the command prompt (booted of a windows cd into recovery mode)

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Full article here: http://www.techspot.com/guides/630-windows-8-boot-fix/

Happy dance....

Artful Images Smugmug site configuration high level steps

The Artful Images site has shaped up nicely.  Configuration of the site was not that difficult. The easy customizer tool was a very good start. Its amazingly powerful.
Selecting a theme that gets you most of the way to your desired look and feel is wise. Try them all...Then push the easy customizer as far as you can to modify the layout. Add navigation, change fonts and all that good stuff. Don't be afraid to change your mind as you go along.

• Next step is to publish some site content in galleries. Don't try to build the whole site at once. Create content in phases. The organization of your galleries may change. Mine did as I worked through the content groupings. The site hierarchy I expect will continue to evolve. I know it will. I started off with no categories and then later created them. So I would say this part of the site is fluid and easy to change using the Smartmug interface.
• Install the Adobe Lightroom addin and configure it to upload content.  Test it. Define a set of default settings for the creation of new galleries. This will save you time each time a gallery is created.
• Adding a custom URL and Google analytics key came next. Do this through the account pages.
• The following step was using the advanced customizer to add CSS to change what layout you want. There are many web sites with complete code samples or code snippets. Google search is your friend here.
• Build some more galleries....tweak the CSS once again.
• Add some non image content pages such as an About page. Link them into the navigation.
• Adding content for SEO is a good thing to do. Pay attention to image keywords. Mine are a mess and I will need to work on this next as I publish more images. My mess comes from not using Lightroom keywords well. Now I will have to fix and enhance a lot of Adobe Lightroom keywords.
• The homepage has undergone several revisions. I started with a static single image and a bio section. Now it has a slideshow, a bio section full of text about the site and not me, and a keyword section for search engines.
• Keep evolving your CSS as your site progresses. CSS its not a once done thing with this type of iterative build. Mine has changed many times. Remember less is more here. Keep your CSS to the minimum.
• Check your custom pages for markup errors and fix them. This could be things like mismatched tags.
• Review how your site looks on a tablet and adjust layout as necessary again. IOS and Android would be wise. The Android slide show needs work by Smugmug. The theme that I had chosen for the site had a broken layout when using Chrome on the Android Nexus 7. I changed the theme at this point to one that rendered better.
• Create a blog and link it to your Smugmug site. The blog will be useful for frequently updated and current content publishing. Such as this :-)
• Publish more image content with good relevant keywords.
• Smugmug was a wise choice for me. I needed the easy publishing features mostly. I got them. Customization has been easy. Perfect enough!

My site is at: www.artfulimages.ca

New LED studio lighting to replace halogen bulbs

After four of the 'studio'  halogen MR16 bulbs burnt out, I went to get some more. Let me say I hate replacing these bulbs. Finicky work. I have considered LED lighting before and there are LED MR16 bulbs available. They are pricy, however.Today there was five bucks off from Ontario Hydro instant rebates. I've replaced five halogen bulbs and the results are outstanding.
The bulbs to get are the 'Bright White Light' ones from Philips. They are 5000K bulbs and my prints look great under that color of light. These ones are dimmable. BCMR10R16 35Watt.
Hopefully, I will never be replacing these bulbs again :-) 

Faded Tulips

Henrys Burlington

The new Henrys Camera Store opened in Burlington today (April 10.) 
The staff did not know what the opening specials were yet. Watch for the flyer they said.
The store is laid out and stocked like the other Henrys retail outlets.
I'm still partial to the bargains at the Henrys outlet store :-) or Burlington's two other long time camera stores (Burlington Camera and Duncan and Wright.) There they know my name...

Poison Dart frog- Molly

This would be Molly...
Dendrobates tinctorius, the Dyeing Poison Arrow Frog

Toronto Distillery District Walk

Behind the Green Door......from the Toronto Distillery District this morning.

Behind the Green Window.

Forgotten

The Light Slowly Rusting Away


 

 

 

May 2013 Nature Photographer

The May 2013 edition of Nature Photographer Magazine has a focus on landscapes. There is lots of good content and images this month. Johnny now wants a Canon 6D for full frame images.

New website for Artful Images

The new website for Artful Images is under configuration (www.artfulimages.ca).
It's a SmugMug based site that I'm skinning as I go along. Here at Artful Images under development is a way of life!
My old blog (www.johngreen.ca) has been moved to Google Blogger. Some skinning has been done. More is to come.