Marc Benton dot Com

What I’m Reading This Week 04/16/10

Welcome to Episode 6 of What I’m Reading This Week.  The content below are links to the various sites on the web that I found interesting and wanted to share with you from this week.  They deal mostly with photography, Wordpress, or maybe even something totally off key.  I hope you find them interesting as well. Leave a comment and let me know if this series is useful to you.

First off let me send a big congratulations to Jason and Kim Moore, of Jason D Moore Photography, on the birth of their son Liam this week.  I hear both son and wife are doing well.  We’re looking forward to more photos of the family Jason!

My job search is slowly, excruciatingly slow, making progress.  I had a recent opportunity I  had high hopes for.  I was interviewed via phone by Eileen Kessler, CEO of OmniStudio, for an Interactive PM position yesterday afternoon.  I greatly enjoyed our conversation and for the first 25 minutes I thought it was going well.  In the end though I did not have the IA experience they were looking for.  While I do maintain a working knowledge of IA I did not think it ethical to overstate it just to get in the door.  I wish Eileen and the staff at OmniStudio continued success, if you are in need of print or interactive media services then give them a look.  Also, check out my Social Media Resume and let me know if you have any positions I may be a match for.

Now on to the links…

Photoblog of the Week

Frame NOT Included

Frame Not Included is a daily photoblog, created and maintained by Erik Saastad, Inge Thorud and Jørgen Stensrud.

From their About page:

Frame not included, or Frame among friends, is a little project by three guys from Oslo. We’re all hooked on photography, and the purpose for Frame is to be sort of an exhibition for the photos we actually dare put our names on. Every day we will post a new photo, and cross our fingers for someone to like it. If not, we can pat each other on the back. We hope you will drop by every now and then, to check out our baby

Links

House Season Finale Filmed Entirely with Canon 5D Mark II
2010 Webby Award Nominees for Best Use of Photography
PetalPixel

Stacking Images in Lightroom
How to Automate Your Watermarking
How to Copyright Watermark Your Images in Lightroom 3
Digital Photography School

A Primer on Licensing Your Work
CanonBlogger

Is conservation photography the new postmodernism?
RESOLVE – the livebooks blog

Technique Tuesday: I Can See For Miles – How To Get Beautiful Results With Long Lenses
DigitalProTalk – David Ziser

Seven Tips for Building a Portfolio
PhotoFocus – Scott Bourne

The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
oktrends

Whats on your Photographic Bucket List?
Photo-Africa – Gerry van der Walt

The Wordpress Theme Team
Wordpress.com

Free Stuff and Contests

50 Free Photoshop Actions for Portraits at PhotoRadar
Twitter Contest is Still Going at Towner Jones Photography
Giveaway – Get your Free Copy of StudioPress Wordpress Theme at wpbeginner

The Friday Follow Five on Twitter

Patty Hankins – @PattyHankins
str8photography – @str8photography
Heather Goss – @heathermg
Amazing Photography – @AmazingPics
George Fletcher – @gffletch

For more recommendations check out my Twitter list of DC Area Photographers (updated weekly).

Upcoming DC Area Photography Events

Shutterbug Excursions:  NYC Pick-and-Choose Two-Day Excursion Apr 17-18
Andy Smith/VisualRealia: New Oxford Photowalk June 5th (2 hours north of DC but I hear Andy puts on a great walk so its definitely worth the drive)

Have a great week!

Tags: #ff, contests, follow friday, free stuff, links, photography events

What I’m Reading This Week 04/09/10

Welcome to Episode 5 of What I’m Reading This Week.  The content below are links to the various sites on the web that I found interesting and wanted to share with you from this week.  They deal mostly with photography, Wordpress, or maybe even something totally off key.  I hope you find them interesting as well. Leave me some comments and let me know if this series is useful to you.

Photoblog of the Week

daily dose of imagery

daily dose of imagery is a simple but interesting view of Sam Javanrouh’s day to day visual experience. Sam was born in Tehran, Iran but is now living in Toronto.

Links

Announcing CreativeLive.com Free – Live Education for Photographers & Other Creatives
Three Tips for Those Bored With Their Photography
photofocus

Introducing CreativeLive.com – Worldwide Free Creative Education
Chase Jarvis

Camera Calibration – Camera Raw and Lightroom’s Secret Weapon for Better Looking Images
PhotoWalkPro

3 Tips for Smart Collections
Lightroom Killer Tips

Turning Your Photography Hobby into a Business
Penn Camera Blog

Defining Your Visual Style
Digital Photography School

Treat Nature How You Want Nature to Treat You
Outdoor Photo Gear (article written by Scott Wyden)

Annoying People with your Photography Habit
Beyond Megapixels

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Photo Tagging Etiquette
AllFacebook

Get Ready for Wordpress 3.0
BloggingPro

Free Stuff and Contests

Giveaway: Smugmug Pro Account at All Day I Dream About Photography
Win a Free Lens Rental from Borrowlenses.com at JMG-Galleries
10 free photo grids for Photoshop at PhotoRadar

The Twitter Friday Follow Five

Penn Camera Stores – @PennCamera
Digital Photography School – @digitalps
Jordyn Witko – @onlyJordyn
Kerrin Kastorf – @kerrinsuzanne
Heather Rider – @hrider

For more recommendations check out my Twitter list of DC Area Photographers (updated weekly).

Upcoming DC Area Photography Events

Washington Photography Meetup Group:  The Washington Photography April Meetup Apr 14
Shutterbug Excursions:  NYC Pick-and-Choose Two-Day Excursion Apr 17-18
Andy Smith/VisualRealia: New Oxford Photowalk June 5th (2 hours north of DC but I hear Andy puts on some great walks so its probably worth the drive)

Have a great week!

Tags: #ff, contests, follow friday, free stuff, links, photography events

Frecs for 3/19/2010

If you read last week’s Frec or follow me on Twitter you’ll know I turned my ankle pretty bad.  I’ve been stuck most of this week on the couch using elevation and ice to speed up the healing process.  Its been working as I can get around ok now, I just need to be careful.  This injury has put a crimp in my activities including my job search and photography.

Speaking of job search, I’m still actively in the hunt.  Its getting down to critical time to find something and I’m very appreciative of any referrals.  You can find more about my background on my social media resume.  Family and bills come first above all else so I may be parting with some camera gear soon.  First to go will probably be my 70-200 2.8L Canon lens.  Let me know if you are interested in it.

My blogging has suffered some this week as well.  I’m working on a post about Facebook and photography which I’ll probably wrap up this weekend.  I’m trying to get to three posts a week on this blog but being immobile has not helped that.  I’ve taken my daily photoblog down from 7 to 5 days a week as well since I do not want to pull too much from my archives and keep the content fresh.

Enough of the negatives. We did relaunch Photoblogging DC this week and our contributor’s photos are as great as ever.  Stop by and take a look at the site and let us know what you think.

The weather this weekend is supposed to be AWESOME.  My son has a hockey tournament that will take some of our time but I’m hoping we can get out in the sun some too.

Being on the couch did give me a lot of time to catch up on my RSS feeds.  I’ve found a number of great articles I hope you enjoy along with adding a couple of new features to this post.

Photoblog of the Week

Katie Harbath is a local photographer in the DC area.  She has a unique eye for capturing nature, architecture and other subjects of interest in and around the city.  Katie is also a co-editor of PhotoBlogging DC.  Check our her photoblog and say hi.

Links

Cloud Photography
How to Choose Your Next Camera – What and Where to Buy
Beach Photography
Digital Photography School

Photography, Its All Things to All People
Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography by Jim Goldstein

Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush Essentials
photofocus

First Looks at the New Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens
The-Digital-Picture.com

Clients Will Choose Trust Over Talent Every Time
Black Star Rising

A Brief HDR Tutorial
Beyond Megapixels

Why HTML5 is worth your time (This one is not directly photography related but its good to keep up with new technology, especially as it affects our online presence.)
O’Reilly Radar

Free Stuff and Contests

50 free photo frames and borders for Photoshop (and Elements) from PhotoRadar
Free iStockphoto Images for Google’s Blogger Template Designer from current photographer
Free Photoshop Plug-ins from onOne Software from current photographer
145 Free Photoshop Easter Brushes from All Day I Dream About Photography
Lightroom Presets – Hard Edgy Look from Lightroom Killer Tips
Win a Brand New Canon 1DMKIV from photofocus

The Friday Follow Five on Twitter

Michael Seneschal – @mike_seneschal
Joe McNally – @JoeMcNallyPhoto
PhotoBlogging DC – @photobloggingdc
Victoria Pickering – @vpickering
Jason D Moore – @JasonDMoore

For more recommendations check out my Twitter list of DC Area Photographers (updated weekly).

Upcoming DC Area Photography Events

Photowalk DC: Early Morning Cherry Blossom Photowalk
Shutterbug Excursions: Cherry Blossom Happy Hours
Washington Photography Meetup Group: Photowalk: Cherry Blossoms at Night

Now get outside and enjoy Spring.  Have a great week!

Tags: Digital Photography, follow friday, links, sharing, What I'm Reading This Week

Frecs for 3/12/2010

Frecs = Friday Recommendations

Its been an interesting and full week here.  I’m still in the full-time job hunt and making some progress.  Sherri and I attended an informal photowalk with friends in DC over the weekend which included the Eastern Market followed by the Ninjas vs Pirates games.  I also ran into some skateboarders at Freedom Plaza that were nice enough to let me take some shots of them in action.  We’re still making headway in getting PhotoBlogging DC relaunched, expect to see an announcement next week.

I stopped by the Kettler Capital IcePlex yesterday to watch my hockey team, The Washington Capitals, practice and sneak in some photography.  I came away with more than I bargained for though, around 200 shots and a bum ankle.  My new #1 tip to photographers:  Don’t concentrate on your subject (i.e. Mike Green) so much that you forget to look out for that curb lying in wait to turn your ankle.  I don’t think I broke anything but I will probably lame for a week or so.  Ice and Advil will be my companions for awhile.  The shot below with Mike Green posing with a visiting atom team from Canada was the one I was trying to get. I was in excruciating pain when I finally did snap it.

Links

• 8 Ways to Participate in the DC Area Photography Community.
• Jason D. Moore has a new 4 part series on SEO for Bloggers.
• Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips started a conversation around The 5 Places I use Lightroom Presets the Most (And the Least)
• Digital Photography School (DPS) is always good for a few links every week but if I had to cut it down to the one that interested me the most it would be How to Take the Perfect Headshot: 6 Tips.
• Scott Bourne has an interesting post on Photofocus about 10 Places to Find Photographic Inspiration.
• Jeff Revell of PhotoWalkPro wrapped up his European trip with his article The Thing About Travel Photography.
• David A. Ziser, author of Captured by the Light (and presenter of one awesome webinar), shares his 15 Steps for Shooting Weddings in Catholic Churches.

The Friday Follow Five

1. Scott Bourne – @scottbourne
2. Rob Jones – @townerjones
3. Nichole Young – @nicolesy
4. Jason Anderson – @CBJason
5. Jeff Namadan – @jnamadan

For more recommendations check out my Twitter list of DC Area Photographers.

Have a great week!

Tags: friday follow, kettler iceplex, links, mike green, recommendations, sharing, twitter, washington capitals, What I'm Reading This Week

Around the Web 1-30-09

I found a few hours last night to catch up on two weeks worth of RSS feed joy.  Here’s what I found interesting and hope you will too.

Photo courstesy of raymondbPhotos via The Upgraders pool on Flickr.

from JMG Galleries

Flickr Collection on Getty: Why I’m Not Taking Part

Last week Flickr announced the launch of their second phase of the partnership with Getty Images.  This program provides Flickr uses the opportunity to sell certain photos through Getty’s services.  Jim provides an insightful view of the program with what he sees as the downfalls and risks.

Continue reading »

Tags: Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson, Digital Photography, Getty Images, links, news, other, training