While Getty has bought up most of the stock out there, there’s still some good sites for cheap (and good) stock photography.

One that I use often is iStockPhoto, where you pay a certain amount, and then your money gets converted into credits. Each photo is n credits, and the bigger the size, the more credits it costs.

Check them out the next time you need generic photography. You won’t be disappointed, I don’t think.

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration into law on Friday. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.

The bill, sponsored by Russell Pearce, a state senator and a firebrand on immigration issues, has several provisions.

It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.

It also makes it a state crime — a misdemeanor — to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.

The whole issue I have with the immigration debate is simple:

Whatever happened to that plaque under the statue of liberty? Where has that attitude gone?

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I wish we wouldn’t forget this, this which made our country great.

Finally I can be secure and not be annoyed by having to put my password in when I just run away for long enough that my screensaver kicks on. Yes!

Often you may run away to grab a sandwich, get the mail, or answer the phone. You’re away, but not for very long. Just long enough for your screensaver to kick on, which usually would lock your computer, requiring you to enter your password. If this happens enough, you’ll say “screw it” and just leave your computer unlocked all the time. Solved!

Maybe I’m just in love with the flip-phone itself. It probably could have been any other phone, and I’d love it just as well. But all I know is, I want my v551 back. And while we’re at it, my Nintendo 64.

One of the coolest albums I’ve seen in awhile. The viola work is simply brilliant. Flobots hit my radar awhile back with the popular Handlebars, and this album does not disappoint. An album with a strong political underpinning, even if you don’t agree with their message (though I’m not sure how anyone wouldn’t), you’ll enjoy the music.

Highly recommended. Also, Mackenzie is really pretty.

Everyone needs cool desktop images. After awhile the ones that come with your computer just don’t cut it. One of my favorite sites go hit when looking for something fresh is Mandolux. He’s an awesome photographer and has a way of making really nice images work for the desktop. Usually he has them cut up for dual or even triple(!) displays, but has quite a few for us single-display people too.

My second place I hit is David Lanham’s. He’s a stunning artist, and creates some of the most creative things I’ve seen. While not all of his work is available in wallpaper form, a lot is. He also sells prints. (which I keep meaning to pick a couple up…)

Two sites you should seriously check out, their work is not only beautiful, it serves a purpose. Removes boringness.

Let’s deconstruct this video, which, by the way, was created in the 1980s. Before basically any of this was invented. Apple’s team that made this video was brilliant.

1) Computers that talk. This is here now, both in Mac OS X and the latest versions of Windows. Not quite as nicely spoken as this, but the Mac one is quite good. (Not sure about the Windows one)

2) Animation to make the guy’s face talk. This is basically here too. I’m not 100% that it can be done automatically, but I’m pretty sure it’s possible. (VS. manually created)

3) Time aware calendars: Yep.

4) “Let me see the lecture notes from last semester”: Well, in a roundabout way really. Searching (on mac anyway) is pretty much amazing.

5) “Pull up all the articles I haven’t read recently”: Not really. Unless you count RSS readers, or Queues like on Hulu.

6) John Fleming article: Again, searching. With keywords, this is fairly possible.

7) Multi-Touch functionality: That is, touching to do things rather than a mouse. It’s in millions of people’s pockets now.

Video Chatting: Completely here.

9) Video Chatting with screen sharing. It’s possible in iChat.

In the end, we’re extremely close to this reality. There’s a pretty new system called Siri out now. I watched a video of one of the guys who is making it discussing the way it works and how they built it the other day. The hardest part of these things is the context-aware system. Humans are so smart they’re dumb, they leave things out expecting the other person to figure it out. “I booked a ticket to London for tomorrow”…”Wonder what the weather is like”, etc. Well, a human realizes that they mean the weather in London. However, a computer has no clue. Enter context-aware. Siri has the ability to “remember” previous queries. So, ask it about movie times in Evansville, and then ask it the weather for tonight. It’ll assume you mean in Evansville.

We’re getting really close to this reality. And I can’t wait for it to happen.

When is there too much connectivity? When does it get to the point that too many people know too much about you? I mean, do your 600 so-called friends on facebook really need to know that you slipped in the shower and crushed the cat? Why am I compelled to pull my phone out and check facebook status updates at least three times a day?

First off, I think it can be pretty easy to move from the “this is cool” to “my grandmother just called me because she saw that one of my friends’ moms posted that I went to a pool party with booze and now she’s yelling at me”. And I haven’t said anything at all about the possibility, nay, the reality that the government(s) are watching what you’re posting, not to mention the companies that own facebook/twitter/youtube/wordpress/etc. Or how incredibly easy it is to stalk someone now because of these things.

Secondly, why am I compelled to pull out my phone to check facebook 3 times a day? Why am I not checking out the new york times or CNN? Probably because the real news is too real- it’s too sad and depressing and overwhelming. The world, if all you do is listening to the news, is going to hell in a handbasket..Or actually, it’s already there but the damn taxi hasn’t picked it up from the airport yet. So we turn to social media stuff, like facebook and twitter, because the “little people” (and not the dwarf and midget kind) don’t have problems that big. Sure, they might seem that big to them, but in the grand scheme of things, you falling and crushing the cat, while it sucks, isn’t nuclear war. It’s more like a very, very small genocide (they do have 9 lives after all. You’re a serial killer now.).

In the end, (and I’m not exactly sure where I was going with this) it’s a balancing game. Don’t rely on facebook too much, it might be gone tomorrow. Don’t post things that could get you in trouble, because they very well could. Think before giving a company your information, don’t ever use the same password at a bank that you do at facebook or AIM. And for god’s sake, don’t let your boyfriend video you having sex. It WILL end up online.

First, a bit of statistics.

Studies have shown people will, on average, wait on a site to load for 8.5 seconds. Which means, after about 8 seconds, if your potential client hasn’t seen any images, they will leave. Poof. Gone. You’ve lost what could be a big chunk o’ money due to a slow loading site.

Second, usability.

People have become used to normal websites- where the address bar, back & forward buttons work. It’s been that way since the web began, and flash sites generally screw that up completely. People WANT to send their friends/coworkers/family links to things (and chain letters, but that’s another rant). Unless the flash site is extremely well created (and let’s face it, the majority aren’t) that simply isn’t possible.

One study that I found very interesting was done by dack.com. It found that on Tiffany’s website (in 2000, but still extremely relevant), where they had a normal HTML shopping site and a flash version, that participants could find out simple things, such as how much an item was, comparing multiple items, etc 40% faster on the normal HTML site than the flash version. One of the major things that tripped people up? The normal back button didn’t work. And as far as I know (and I make websites for a living, but I could be wrong…) it’s simply not possible to make that work with flash.

Third, Apple.

There’s 50 million iPhones out there. Surely one hell of a lot of iPod Touches, and they’re on target to do well over 1 million iPads by the end of the year. None of which have flash. People are using iPhones and such a lot more than they used to, and that’s only going to go up. Don’t expect flash to come to iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches any time soon, since Apple and Adobe are basically in a holy-war still.

Why should you care? Well, iPhones account for about 25% of the smartphone market. That’s a LOT of people to exclude.

Finally…

Why should you use a technology that forcefully excludes a huge portion of your potential clients and will annoy the rest of them? It’s just bad business sense.

Regular sites simply work faster, better, and in the end really have the upper hand on any flash site. Especially with really cool stuff coming out of JavaScript development at the moment, flash is really, truly, (hopefully) dying a nice, slow, painful death.

Of course, I’m guilty of it too. However, the only reason for that is I simply haven’t had time to fix my site.

One of the ways to get your photos noticed is to post them to groups. You also need to spend some quality time finding other photographers that you like and comment… Always comment back when someone comments on your stream, because the more relationships you build, the more people will friend you, and the more likely you will get noticed by someone important.

So, how do you add your photos to groups? It’s pretty simple. First, click the group tab at the top of the flickr website.

Then click “Search for a group”. Type in some keywords, for this photograph I might type in “Indiana”, or “church”, or “statue”, or “nature”.

There’s tons of groups for all different things. Maybe you want to become active in a group of people your own age (“College” would be a good search term)? Or possibly of your interests (“Rock Music Lovers”)? You could also join one of the groups that is specifically set up to provide constructive criticism. In these groups, you post a photo, but must also comment and give constructive criticism on a certain number of other photos.

Join a group, and then go back to your photo page and click “Add to group”. Select the group you want to add the photograph to, and then boom, you’re done!

This can give hours of hilarity, and truly broaden one’s knowledge… for better or worse. I recommend the first link under “why can’t i own a canadian” (which I found that somewhat relevant since the Olympics are in Canada this year) to anyone who either is a God-fearing person with a sense of humor, or anyone who’s agnostic or atheist.

Some of the suggestions are somewhat sad though, such as “grandparents raising grandchildren” or “how to kiss a girl”. But, everyone’s gotta learn somehow…

• Subject
• Lighting
• Background
• Foreground
• Color (or lack thereof)
• Focus
• The way the eye moves

Click on the following images for larger versions:

• Subject
• Lighting
• Background
• Foreground
• Color (or lack thereof)
• Focus
• The way the eye moves

Click on the following images for larger versions:

• History
• Terminology
• Techniques
• Using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
• And how amazing Baked Ruffles Sour Cream & Onion and Jones Soda is.

One thing you may notice is I probably won’t ever mention Nikon cameras. It’s not that I dislike them, but I started on Canons, and have never really used a Nikon.

The Beginning…

There are several types of cameras, and I shall list a couple of the most-used now.

• P&S (Point and Shoot): The type of camera you probably own. Things like a Canon Digital Elph. A cell phone camera can be classified as a P&S. Generally these don’t have many settings, and are rather cheap.
• SLR (Single Lens Reflex): SLR cameras are larger, and have many more settings and options, such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, AF (autofocus) mode, file format, and AF location. SLRs are used by most professional photographers (cameras like the Canon 1Ds Mark III or 5d). SLRs are being used by many consumers too, people who are looking for better image quality, less shutter lag, and more options. (Canon Rebel XSi).

There is a lot of  photo editing software out there, but the applications I will be using are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. There’s Apple Aperture, iPhoto, Google’s Picasa, and may others too.

My Gear

I shoot with two cameras: a Canon Digital Rebel XT, and a Leica D-Lux 3 (click to see the new D-Lux 4).
For the Canon, I have a few lenses, four of which I love: the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM, the cheap as chips (but still amazingly sharp) Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, and the Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. I carry (but don’t use often) a Canon 580ex Flash as well.

Myself

I’ve done some professional photography work for some companies, having my work published in some newspapers, many ads, websites and promotional materials. I also keep an online portfolio (which hasn’t been updated in ages) here. I also post my photographs on Flickr. I’ve been featured in Schmaps’ East Coast Guide, too.

I don’t think I’m a great photographer, and at this point I’m kinda rusty as I haven’t had time to do any photo work in about a year, but I know my stuff, and generally everyone says I’m great. So I think I’m fairly good. I’m particularly happy with my Portrait of a Park series (which is ongoing), and my a form of minimalism series is shaping up quite well too.

I love so many photographs & photographers. To even try to come up with a list would take years. So, for a sampling of the most amazing photographs I have ever seen, check out my Flickr favorites. You won’t be disappointed.

Enough about me..

What about you? What photography do you enjoy? What do you shoot with? Do you think you’re any good? Do you have a Flickr account, or an account on a similar photo sharing website? Let us see it!

Are bloggers journalists?

As a blogger you may not consider yourself a journalist, but even if you’re just writing about your day or what you think about a subject, you are.
Journalism, as defined by the Random House Dictionary is:

1. A person who practices the occupation or profession of journalism.

2. A person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events.

Therefore, anyone who blogs is, by definition a journalist! (How does it feel to be a journalist? Pretty cool, eh?)

The power of blogs…

Blogs have given the public at large the power, not only in this country but the entire world. No longer do we have to rely on the “traditional” media. Too many times in world history horrible things have happened—and gone unnoticed—due to everyone relying on traditional, and in some cases, state-sponsored media. (I’m looking at you, Iran and China, and many others probably.) If it weren’t for Twitter, it’d be very unlikely that anyone would have known the full impact of the recent (and sadly, failed) Iran Revolution. How many of Hitler’s atrocities could have been stopped or could have never happened if we had this ability in the 30′s and 40′s?

Ethical Blogging

Editing previous posts

Sims recently said (and I’m paraphrasing here…) “The blog is a living, breathing thing…I know people who, and I have, gone back to posts I wrote 2 years ago to change and update them…Your ideas change, your perceptions change, and sometimes you want to reflect that in old posts.”

This really got me thinking. This is really a bad idea to spread without some caveats. Even though it is technically possible to do something, doesn’t mean it should be done. I technically can take an axe to my laptop, but I shouldn’t, as it’s still pretty new (2 years and counting…hopefully I won’t have the urge to upgrade for at least another 2, but Apple will probably come out with something so amazingly cool I won’t make it that far..), works great, and I need it for work and school. If you are going to edit previous posts, you should use Strikes or simply add the word EDIT: at the bottom and add text there if you want to add to it. Some (possibly all, I’m not sure) blogging platforms, when you update a post, it sends it back through the RSS feed, and people who have already read it will find it pretty odd and annoying that you’ve changed it without giving any indication of the changes. It will make you seem less truthful, and probably undermine your credibility in the long run.

Standards

As I said in my introduction, there’s around 1,200,000 mentions of blogging ethics on the web. It’s a topic that has plagued blogs since the beginning—For blogs to be taken seriously in the real world, and be a true competitor of the traditional media, bloggers must be able to convince the general public that they are credible. Too often do bloggers say “oh, it’s a blog, I don’t need to write with proper capitalization, punctuation, spelling or language”. I completely disagree. (When I say language, I mean using real words and not “foul” language.) As a blogger, you should consider every post you write as something that someone, be it a fellow blogger, your parents, a possible boss, your children might read and judge you. As far as the boss thing goes, bosses are ever increasingly checking up on social media sites for prospects and current employees… so watch out. However, this reminds me of an XKCD comic…

It’s important for everyone to retain credibility. Even if you don’t want to gain thousands or millions in readers, the people who do read it will stop if it’s hard to read. So, always assume that someone incredibly important, someone you want—or need—to impress is reading. Who knows, they might be.

A Code of Ethics

• Be Honest and Fair
• Minimize Harm
• Be Accountable

I shall leave you with a link to the first article on that Google search. It’s quite good and goes into detail of these main points.
A Bloggers’ Code of Ethics at CyberJournalist.net

It’s now hosted on wordpress.com because I simply couldn’t be bothered to install WordPress on my web host. We shall see how long it lasts this time.