Monthly Archives: March 2009

Contest, Photography

BenSpark’s Digital Days Photo Contest

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Award Winning Photographer

It is time again for a contest. This time I have a great sponsor in Digital Days. Digital Days is a two day workshop for new photographers that travels around the country to 18 cities a year. The workshops have a beginner day (Day 1) and an intermediate day (Day 2). Here is the Digital Days schedule.

DAY 1 – Learn the Basics
Inspiration, Fun, Cool things you can do with Photography
1:00-5:00pm

Digital Fundamentals
* Learn about all the necessary digital photography techniques and terms, from scene modes, manual modes, ISO and depth of field, and everything in-between
* Learn how the fundamental settings affect the shot you want to get
* This session builds a strong foundation of digital photo knowledge

Taking Better Pictures
* Explore composition and subject
* Different shooting styles from landscape to macro

After the shot
* Get familiar with a basic digital workflow
* Learn some editing tricks
* Printing and sharing options!
* Create calendars and postcards. And so much more!

Plus a Live Q&A!

DAY 2 – Beyond the Basics
Here’s how to make great pictures, and what to do with them
9:00-5:00pm

Expanding the Fundamentals
* Brief review from Day 1
* Examine light & composition, subject, color & movement
* Advanced camera functions
* Exposure modes
* Analyzing the histogram

Live Shooting
* Live model shoot! Lighting is set up and we have several model stations
* Our instructors are available throughout the shoot to answer your questions

Image Critique
* Various attendee images from the model shoot are critiqued live by our instructors

Digital Workstation/Workflow
* How to organize your workstation/color calibration
* Build a foundation of digital organizational techniques
* Tagging, metadata, etc…

Advanced Editing
* Color Management
* Skin Tone
* Digital Darkroom

Plus a Live Q & A!

Now that is a pretty jam packed couple of days. Even though this event is geared toward the beginner I know it is going to be something that I will get a ton of knowledge from. I’m pretty much a guy who just shoots pictures. I don’t know all the fundamentals yet. I really think that this would be a great learning experience for anyone who isn’t a complete expert.

Digital Days is more than the 2-Day Workshop

A visit to the Digital Days website will show you that Digital Days extends beyond the 2-day workshops. There is an archive of helpful videos with great digital photo tips. There is a monthly newsletter with updates from the instructors (Phil Mistry, Leslie Fisher and John Omvik) and past Digital Days alumni. There is even an Alumni group on FaceBook. The event is sponsored by Sony and presented by Popular Photography.

Because I thought I’d have a great time and learn a lot while at Digital Days I asked for a pass and not only got one for myself but Six additional passes for my readers.

I’m Giving Away Six 2-Day Passes for Digital Days

I have been given six two-day passes for my readers. That is one 2-day pass per remaining Digital Days event. Digital Days will be taking place at these Digital Days locations.

  • Palm Springs , CA – April 4 & 5, 2009
  • Boston, MA – April 18 & 19, 2009
  • San Francisco, CA – April 25 & 26, 2009
  • New York, NY – May 16 & 17, 2009
  • Nashville, TN – May 30 & 31, 2009
  • Atlanta, GA – June 6 & 7, 2009

How To Enter

If you are interested in entering this contest you’re going to need to pick your best photo and post it to the BenSpark’s Digital Days Photo Contest Group on Flickr between March 15 and March 31st. Flickr is free, and the group is a public group so anyone can join and submit 1 photo to the pool. So make sure it is a good one.

The Photos will be judged by a group of online photographers that I know who unfortunately can’t make it to any of the locations. (I’m looking for volunteers to help judge, by being a judge you are ineligible to participate)

Some Rules:
* Photos can be uploaded to the Flickr Group from March 16- March 31st 11:59pm EST.

* When leaving your photo on the BenSpark’s Digital Days Photo Contest Group specify which location you would like a Digital Days 2-Day pass for. You have to be able to attend the event in order to win.

* One photo entry per person. Winning photos will be displayed in a post so please allow me access to post the winning photos on BenSpark.com

* While I’m are not offended by it, I cannot accept photos that contain any nudity.

* Winners will be selected based on several criteria including, originality, theme, technical & artistic details, story, and visual impact.

Photo-A-Day

Feeding the Piggies

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Feeding the Piggies
Photo-A-Day #1437

Eva has still not gotten over her sickness and neither has Allison. This has really affected Eva’s sleeping habits. She’s been getting up at very odd hours including 4:00am last night, and I didn’t even think about taking a 4am photo either.

After a really nice Mass we recovered for a bit and Allison and I decided on food for the week. Then it was off to the supermarket for me. Supermarket shopping is sort of a Zen-like experience for me. When I go by myself it is my time, I plan out the whole trip so that everything that needs refrigeration gets picked up last even if that means doing a little backtracking. I’m totally in the zone while shopping. I have my coupons and my little scanner and my list. Sometimes I even wear my headphones and just completely relax to the music.

When I got home I watched the latest Transformers Animated episodes from the DVR. The new season started yesterday and it was fantastic. I love how they are starting to get them most out of the back stories. I know that many people are not fans of this series but it really is the best one in a while. Given time this series will be remembered as one of the best ever. Even the designs are some of my favorites.

Allison and I took Eva to World War I Memorial Park to feed the animals. On the way over we asked Eva what noises each of the animals made. Aside from telling us that each one says “moo” on the 1st try she did pretty well when asked a second time. She’s got dog, cat, sheep, horse, pig and of course cow down. She really is thrilled about sounds, her current favorite book right now is “Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?”.

We walked all around and feed the goats, llamas, little pigs, and the horse. We brought a bag of carrots with us and the animals were all about the carrots. They were so excited for the carrots. Eva was thrilled, she’d want to get closer to them, I think she’d really enjoy a petting zoo at some point. I’m not sure where there is one close by. We still need to get our membership to the local zoos through Zoo New England. Once we get that we’ll be able to go to pretty much every zoo near us as part of that membership.

I fixed the computer, had to go to the cmd prompt to do it. I’m hoping to get that video published still. We shall see.

As far as the project with the bike I was unable to take care of that today but soon I will do that project and blog about it.

Tomorrow is the start of three days of presentations. This is going to be interesting.