Random Panderings

Bittbox have a selection of free B&W grunge textures. I’ve an old set from them that I love, and were used by Disconnect 4 for their promo shots.

Check them out over there.

Once upon a time this was a photoblog. I needed to get away from that for a while and in the process took stuff from a number of blogs into this one. Well this time for photoblogging is back. This time, I’m doing on a dedicated community blog site: A minus 3. So add Lost Concepts to your RSS feed.

Random Panderings will still get attention and very definitely become a more general blog, so keep an eye on your feed as I introduce more video and audio related stuff here.

Happy Christmas. I’ve been having a wonderful day of presents and a healthy dose of reflection. Yesterdays trip has me fired up for more day trips in the large amount of coming free time in January. I hope all goes well with you, your health and happiness in the new year.

I did most of the Connemara Loop today. I didn’t head up to Tully Cross as the road was literally white from the ice on it. This morning shooting portraits of dead leaves covered in hoar frost, when I got a text from an acquaintance from Clifden letting me know there was snow on the mountains in Connemara. I packed my bag, scraped the frost off the car and away I went. While around my house was clear, the city and the road all the way to Ougtherard were covered in fog. The icy road would’ve kept my speed down anyway, but the little old lady 3 cars up made sure we all stayed below 40kph!
Based on prior experience my plan of attack was to go to Lough Inagh first, then Derryclare, and then perhaps Ballynahinch. I opted not to go to Ballynahinch as the snow on the front of Benlettery had melted quickly. The mountains at the top of the Inagh valley were also more compelling looking.
Even though there was a plan, I could help stopping once the fog had cleared. The Maamturk mountains were looking splendid, so I stopped to shoot my first panorama of the day. As it’s long, it’s not going to look great at 600 px wide!

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Some recent shots of Alex with the Elinchrom Ranger Quadras

These 2 were shot using a tilt shift lens:

Poor old Random Panderings is feeling like a lonely lost puppy these days. Even though I spend way too much time in front of the computer, it’s not for blogging. I’m far more likely to be on Twitter as @lightroomblog. Anyway, here’s the lowdown on recent stuff.

I launched LR2Pikchur, a Lightroom Plugin to allow you to post photos and messages to Twitter via Pikchur.com, this morning. It means I’ve 3 publicly available plugins that do this. I have a Yfrog one too, but as they’ve never returned a single email from their ‘partnership’ form, it’s just languishing.

Zebra had it’s launch on Monday. It’s a boutique run by a friend of mine, Olivia, and specialises in affordable high fashion for both women and men. They have a beautiful range of stuff, including that of Harlow & Harvey, as designed by Sarah O’Neill. You’ve seen work from her on this blog already. There was a fashion show as part of the opening, including modeling by a shy gang of her friends. There’s a catwalk built is as part of the shop fit, but backgrounds are a little cluttered, with TV’s, pipes and trussing visible.

Sunday was the most recent Galway Strobist meetup, held in The Quays. Due to illness and work 2 models cancelled, but we still had 2 models, and I had 2 ‘Movember’ portraits also. Movember is a campaign to raise awareness for prostate cancer and depression, by getting sponsorship for growing a mustache. Pauric and Keith were good enough to pose with their ‘ronnies’.

I’ve still to get to the shots of Liz and Alex, the 2 models for the afternoon. Shortly, when I get a bit of time.

This week, I’m also writing my first Lightroom article for Pro Photo Resource. I had something mostly done, but decided to ease into it instead, so began again. That’ll be out next month.

I’m working on a new Web Plugin for Lightroom, should have a 1.0 version soon. You can see how it looks in my new Landscapes website Sky Water Land. Obviously I’ve been tweaking the plugin as I go, but now need to finalise and write the dreaded User Guide. I should just do a wiki!
Speaking of web plugins, I’ve redone LRB Portfolio 2.4 about 3 times thanks to overwritten and missing code. I’m currently trying out Cornerstone to help solve this problem, which has happened before. 2.4 should be out soon too, again when the User Guide has been updated.

On the sound front, The Wailers gig has just been moved to the Roisin Dubh from the Radisson. This means I have to get additional sound equipment booked and sorted before Saturday. It’s a large band with a lot of monitor requirements, so fingers crossed I get it all sorted!

Normal photography work like headshots and PR work are a reasonably sensitive area for blog posting. I’ve been doing a number of shoots for a performance group with under 18 recently, so as you can imagine, even posting an out take is a bad idea. Headshots can be a different matter and while some people love it, others prefer not to have stuff posted. For this kind of work, I don’t even ask anymore and simply don’t post. Of course, it makes for boring blogs.

If you are posting photos online, you really do need the subject’s permission, even on your blog. Ultimately for most photographers, the blog is part of their marketing material and therefore commercial in nature. While we may assume that verbal permission is okay, it’s much better to get it in writing. This written permission is the Model Release.

A good model release should contain the date of the shoot, the type of photos/video taken (we are in the Video DSLR age now!), both a printed name and a signature. With regard to the wording, normally it declares that the model waives all rights to the photographs, is aware of the photographers legal copyright. I also include text indicating the shoot was carried out in a professional manner and the signature is not given under coercion. Finally, some kind of payment is expected to bind the contract. For example, with TG4, the Irish language TV channel, a token €1 is offered to all show participants (whether or not it gets paid is another matter!).

iStockPhoto have a nice section on Model Releases and a sample model release at http://www.istockphoto.com/faq.php?FormName=FaqSearchForm&Category=13.

ScreenFlow, the software I use for making my video tutorials has been updated to 2.0. There was a beta program that I was invited onto and in the process was given a free update. This is nice, but has nothing to do with how I feel about the software. I have to date purchased 3 video screen capture programs for Mac, and this is easily the best, for one simple reason: It allows you to capture and then edit that footage. You can also bring in external media, such as video clips and audio files. (For those wondering, the other 2 are Snapz Pro X and iShowU-I still use Snapz for image capture)

Other features in the application include the ability to create zooms and pans in your captures, along with text and callouts. As you create a capture you can opt to add to a previous file, or can create a new one. Features that are new in 2.0 include reflections, clip speed and direct YouTube publishing. All in all, I think it’s much more versatile than others previously available.

To be balanced, there is a new piece of software to the Mac market and that is the king of PC Screen capture, Camtasia. While the 2 programs are quite similar in design and control, I think the new features in ScreenFlow give it the edge. One thing I do like in Camtasia is the arrows they use for callouts. Still, it’s not enough to convert me, and of course, I have been converted in the past.

Obviously you can now do video screen capture with Quicktime X for Snow Leopard, but then of course you have to edit it into something usable. And that is why a program like ScreenFlow is so useful.

ScreenFlow 2.0 is $99 from Telestream and available now.

As a lover and user of the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra system, I’m delighted to see there’s now a group on Flickr dedicated to them. There was 7 members after I joined last night, but now there’s 17, so a good start!

Flickr Quadra group

I was out at Tyrone house twice in the last few days. Beautiful for a ruin. The IRA destroyed it during The War of Independence, thinking the Black and Tans might use it as a base.