Category Archives: Uncategorized

Inbreeding, Cross-pollination, and Plain Ugly

pt_cruiserI’m not in the market for a new camera, but with the few newsletters I get from vendors and other photography sources, it’s impossible not to learn about new cameras as they’re being released. It’s also impossible not to notice certain trends. Continue reading »

Social Engine Marketing for Engaging Networks (S.E.M.E.N.)

seo-feat-imgIt seems impossible, these days, to go anywhere online and not end-up reading about Search Engine Optimization. SEO and Digital Marketing are en-route to become the poster children of this decade’s neo-industrialism.

What irks me about this brand-new industry, however, is that those involved are starting to sound, and to some degree, behave like cars salespeople.

Continue reading »

Dumb Questions Part II – Size matters (or how many megapixels?)

sensor-400I’ll start by saying (again) that there are no dumb questions (see the first article of the series for more on this).

Your camera’s sensor is the equivalent of the film you’d use in an analog camera (or any camera made before 1990 in all certainty). The quality of the sensor (and that of the lens – more on that soon) directly impacts the quality of your photos.

Pixel count is the first specification people tend to look at, overlooking another that’s far more important: sensor size. In the case of sensors, like the title says, size does matter. Continue reading »

Dad’s Drawers

Dad's Dentures(Click aquí para leer en Español)
I never thought much of death. We all die. My sister died a young woman, when I was 17, and my mother when I was in my late 30’s. Both were deeply painful losses to me, becoming even more painful with the passing of time. But other than a very intimate feeling of bereavement and missing, and a continuous presence, as scars in my soul, if you will, I never really delved into it. And then, on March 1st, I was awakened to the news of my father passing in his sleep, probably right before dawn, 2200 miles away.
Continue reading »

Dumb Questions – What Camera Do You Use?

cameras-400.jpg

The title of this series of articles is quite deliberate, however, I must clarify that I believe that the only dumb questions are the ones that people don’t ask. The dumbest thing that you can ever do with a question is not to ask it. I ask lots of questions whenever I can. Given the chance, I will ask any question that comes to mind, and so should you. Continue reading »

B & H Portfolio Development

Photographically, I’m lucky to live practically in New York City, mostly because the visual opportunities the city has to offer are in-tune with my style and, to boot, they’re virtually endless.

But then, I’m blessed because being a short underground trip away from B & H Photo gives me the opportunity to attend the classes and lectures they host at their Event Space, and that’s where this short adventure, that’s about to end, began. Continue reading »

Facebook and photography (January 2015 version)

Photo: flickr user Saludadea

Photo: flickr user Saludadea

(Click aquí para leer en Español)
Photographers’ issue with facebook and intellectual property is like the pimple that keeps coming back.

Like most online services, the social network’s terms of usage are worded in such a [one-sided] way that more than an agreement between two parties, the only thing missing seems to be your willingness to let them have your first-born in exchange for the privilege of using their service (whatever that may be). Continue reading »

Shades of Gray (50, 100, who cares!)

shades-of-gray.jpg(Haz click aquí para leer en Español)
Histograms are all everyone seems to be talking about lately. The problem with throwing such a cool-sounding term around is that, while everybody in the audience has a tendency to nod automatically, as if by reflex, few people really know what this type of graphic means (or how useful it really isn’t). Continue reading »

You are as important as your subject

sweeping-woman-800.jpgPhotography is a dialogue between subject and photographer. The camera only serves as a device to capture this conversation and freeze it in time.

It goes well beyond seeing something and taking its picture, and in the instant that it takes for the light to make an impression on your camera’s film or sensor, there’s as much coming from the front as there is from the back. Continue reading »

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Today’s Record Store Day

record_store-400.jpgNowadays, it’s as easy to jump from song to song as it is to flip channels on the TV. If we don’t like a song, clicking on a button is enough to listen to another one, and another one, and another, until we hear one whose first five seconds “hook” us.

Continue reading »