Marc Benton dot Com

Photowalk Announcement: Arlington National Cemetery, Sept 19

Event – Photowalk DC #6

Location – Arlington National Cemetery.  Group up at the Visitor’s Center.

When – Saturday, September 19th, 2009 from 8:45am – 12:00pm

Lets gather at the Visitor’s Center starting at 8:45am.  At 9:00 we’ll move toward the Tomb of the Unknowns to view the changing of the guard at their 9:30 ceremony.  Until Sep 30th the changing of the guard occurs every 30  minutes so if we miss 9:30 we can catch the next one at 10:00.  From there we can branch out in groups around the grounds.  Just a few of the  items of interest include the Kennedy plots, Challenger Space Shuttle Memorial, and the Arlington House.

Directions – The Metro Arlington Cemetery station on the Blue Line is the best option.  If you would like to drive, directions can be found on the cemetery’s website here.

Cost – Entrance to the cemetery is free but there is a small charge for parking if you plan to drive.

Registration -  Reply on our Facebook event page or leave a comment here.

After – I’m thinking a metro ride to U Street and a couple half smokes from Ben’s Chili Bowl may be in order.

Tags: arlington national cemetery, Digital Photography, facebook, photowalk, photowalk dc, Virginia

10 Year Milestone

Fellow photoblogger and online friend Jason D Moore recently achieved two milestones on his site.  First was his 1000th post followed a few weeks later with the celebration of his 7th anniversary of his site.

After seeing Jason’s Facebook status on his 7th year, it got me thinking about my time online.  Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine I pulled up my first site that used my old URL mbenton.com (which now redirects here).  It appears I just passed my 10th anniversary online.

My first entry was dated 9/6/1999:

Wecome to my website. Please be patient while I find the time to work on it. In the next few months I expect to build a site that hopefully will become a usable resource for Software Engineers. Topics I am most interested in are XML, Java, JavaScript, HTML, UML, and CMM procedures.
Please check back soon.
marc…

Here’s a screenshot of the original site:

In 1999 Wordpress, Movable Type and other blogging and CMS solutions were nonexistent.  This site was lovingly built by hand with my trusty windows VI emulator (Lemmy).  Lots of tables, no CSS.  Surprisingly though I had little cross browser issues.

The purpose of my original site was quite honestly to grab some acreage on the internet and stake my name out there.  Looking back now I realize I did not have a focus on what I wanted to accomplish.  Due to this my updates were slow.  I did have some good resources such as software language guides on the site, some of which I still use at times today such as the color index page.  Overall though it was not a resource that would keep people coming back.

One direct benefit of hosting and building my own site was an increase of my own knowledge that could be brought to bear in my professional life.  At the time I was a government contractor supporting the USMC.  DoD code then was still mostly client/server using C, C++ and some Java. Web technology was the new frontier.  I’m happy to say my teams helped blaze the trail by implementing XML and HTML in much of our software baselines and helped to set the stage for improved data sharing between USMC and service intelligence systems.  Much of this success was due to our own personal uses of these technologies in our private lives.

Just over two years ago I relaunched with Movable Type and a new focus on social media.  Also about that time my wife and I rediscovered photography and my postings about this subject gradually increased.  Eventually I switched to Wordpress and rebranded as a photoblog.  Today I feel better about my online presence than I ever have before.  I still have times of slow updates due to work schedule but I am becoming more consistent.  Its all about focus and finding one that reflects your passion.  Digital photography is mine.

I congratulate Jason on his seven years.  He’s shown focus and consistency for quite some time.  While I may say I’ve been online for 10 years, when I compare my efforts against Jason’s or some of my other favorite photobloggers its more like 2 years.  Here’s hoping 10 years from now we’re all still here with fresh and relevant content with our new holographic blog posts (possibly a new Wordpress plugin???).

Tags: anniversary, blog, Digital Photography, focus, jason d moore, online, Personal, website

My Daughter’s Work

Today I’m posting a couple of shots my daughter took on our night outing into DC this week.  I’m very proud of what she was able to do with as little experience with a DSLR that she has.  Just think of what she could do if she practiced.

Do me a favor and show her some encouragement by leaving her a comment here or click the image and leaving one on her Flickr page.  Thanks!

Tags: Digital Photography

More Tilt Shift Fun

While looking over my bookmarks I noticed one that I haven’t visited in awhile, tiltshiftmaker.com. I don’t believe I’ve been back here since my post about it in January.

If you haven’t seen this site you need to go look right now. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a tiltshift lens this site gives you that functionality for free. Just upload your image, make any tweeks you want and download your new tiltshifted image.

I went looking through my past month’s shots to see if any were a good subject for this treatment.

Here’s a view of Hershey, PA from the Hershey Hotel.  Panoramic shots with buildings, people or vehicles make the perfect photos for this effect.

For more ideas and to see other images like this visit the Tilt Shift Flickr group.

Tags: Digital Photography, Hershey Pennsylvania, The Hershey Company, tiltshift, tiltshift photography

Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk – Old Town Alexandria – Update 1

We’re less than two weeks before our big Worldwide Photowalk. Time for me to get busy and give some updates.

- First off thank you to everyone that has signed up to attend our event in Alexandria on July 18th as part of the Scott Kelby WorldWide Photowalk. The number of walkers across the globe has just surpassed 20,000 on over 1,000 walks.  I’m really looking forward to spending time with old friends and meeting a number of new local photographers. Plus seeing the images you capture on our route is a bennie.

- Our event has filled up the 50 available slots. If you’d like to be added to the waiting list then please let me know. In case no room becomes available there are a number of other walks in the DC area that can be found on the Worldwide Photowalk map.

- Speaking of the route, I walked it a couple of weeks ago to check it out and I think we have a good one.  Not too long or too short with plenty of interesting subjects along the way.  You can get a preview of it here (not too many spoilers, just a teaser).

- While the joy of meeting new photographers, taking and sharing photos with them, and getting some exercise in is enough for most of us, there is the added bonus of prizes.  I get the dubious honor of selecting one photo from our group to represent us in the final judging by Scott and his crew.  Each walk winner will receive a copy of Scott’s upcoming The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3.  The big winner’s list of prizes can be found here.  Once I get some insight into the judging criteria that Scott will use I’ll let you know as I’ll try to use the same.

- Scott and crew are working on the process of uploading our images after the walk.  While the final process has not been published there is a short video on being prepared when the time comes.

In case you can’t watch or do not have audio here’s the major points:
– Photos will be uploaded to the Worldwide Photowalk page instead of a Flickr group like last year.
– There will be a Lightroom export plugin available for uploading.  If you do not have Lightroom a link to the trial version can be found on the Worldwide Photowalk homepage.
– You will also have the option to upload directly on the site using your login.
– IMPORTANT – Before the big day make sure you have your correct login and password.  If you have any problem remembering your login please let me know by sending me the email address you registered with.  For forgotten passwords there is a link you can use on the login page.
– Our city id for the photowalk is “alexandria-va-usa”.  Remember this as it’s use will be explained in an upcoming video.

- Don’t forget to order your Official Worldwide PhotoWalk T-Shirt, which supports the Springs of Hope Kenya Orphanage.  I’ve ordered and received mine. They look great.

- If you’re feeling social, feel free to connect with me on Twitter at @marcbenton, on Facebook, and Flickr.  BTW, the official Twitter Hashtag is #SKphoto. Please use this tag when tweeting about our Photo Walk.

- Lastly, please let me know if you cannot make the walk.  We have a few people on the waiting list that can fill in any open slots.  On the other hand, even though the photowalk contest is only open to registered walkers, feel free to bring others with you such as children or a friend or two.  I would ask that you let me know if you plan to bring more so that we can be prepared. If you would like to be placed on the waiting list then please let me know.

Tags: #SKphoto, Alexandria, Digital Photography, Hope Kenya Orphanage, Old Town Alexandria, Scott Kelby, Virginia, Worldwide Photowalk