Gordon Laing, of DSLR Tips, and Editor of Camera Labs, shows how to produce blurred backgrounds on portrait shots. If you’re relatively new to photography, this tip could help you take your portrait shots to the next level.
Fundamental, Portrait, Tips, Video Bryan Peterson tells how to take great pictures without spending $700 dollars on a macro lens. This 4:49 minute video covers how to use a close-up lens instead and get the shots you want. Bryan also mentions close-up filters and apparently has some strong fillings about their usefulness. It’s a great short video packed with useful tips.
I spent the last few days moving PhotoFidelity from Typepad to the Squarespace hosted blogging platform. I had debated performing this move for a few months, but finally decided to take the plunge. Though the move required a lot more work on my part than I had anticipated, the result appears worth the effort.
According to their site, Squarespace is a “… fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and maintaining a website, blot or portfolio.” Their tour page provides highlights of its various features, such as: platform reliability, website design tools, and integrated analytics. But, I’ll have to admit, what really sold me on this company was their support staff. I’ve rarely, if ever, encountered a company that makes such a Herculean effort to see that you’re satisfied. It always surprised me how fast they responded to my questions, and not with just a simple form response either.
To be completely open here, Squarespace is not without its limitations. There are a few areas, right off the bat, that I’d like to see improved. Firstly, the editor is a little limiting, but I’m using Windows Live Writer, which integrates nicely with Squarespace, for editing. Secondly, though you have quite a lot of control over templates and layout, there’s a dearth of third-party template providers for this platform. Finally, though the platform comes with a nice collection of integrated widgets, I miss the plethora of third-party widgets available for WordPress.
All in all, I think I’m going to be very happy with this choice. It’s a fee-based service, but I don’t have to think about things like upgrades, security, spam, or load-balancing. Yes, you can manage those with relative ease in WordPress, but take it from someone who had all the latest WordPress security add-ons installed and was still attacked – that’s someone else’s headache now.
I make it a habit of checking out What The Duck every morning for a good chuckle. Today’s entry was no exception.
What The Duck WTD897
Erin Manning, author of Portrait and Candid Photography: Photo Workshop, from the Photo Workshop Series, gives us her top 5 posing and directing photography tips.
This video is 7:19 in length, but it allows you to see how she teaches and interacts with students in her workshops.
Fundamental, Portrait, Tips, Video