Single-Serving Photo

Here are some ideas for New Year’s resolutions to refresh and enliven your photography.

Try something NEW

Experiment with unfamiliar genres. If you normally shoot fine art landscapes, try still life. If you are a sports shooter who is interested in making artistic images, try landscapes. Get outside of your “comfort zone” and attempt something fresh.

Upgrade to a digital SLR

I know, this isn’t really a philosophical “turn over a new leaf” resolution, but maybe this year is the year to step up to a digital SLR camera and really take your photography to the next level. Here are my digital SLR recommendations for first-time owners in 2008:

• Canon Digital Rebel XTi (about $530 from B&H, camera body only)
• Nikon D40 (about $475 from B&H, with 18-55mm lens)
• Nikon D80 (about $780 from B&H, camera body only)

(In in the interest of full disclosure, I do get a small kickback from B&H if you order any of those products through the links on this page. So, please do!)

The Nikon D40 is a solid 6.1 megapixel SLR that B&H sells in three different kits, one with the 18-55mm lens, one with the 18-135mm lens, and one with both the 18-55mm lens as well as 55-200mm lens. The D40 is a solidly built camera with all the features one would need to start learning about the fundamentals of photography and is no slouch in image quality, either. The D40 comes in your choice of a black or silver plastic body (internals and lens mounts are, of course, made of metal).

A step up in price from the Nikon D40 is the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (or 400D for those not in the States). Aside from the bonus of being able to choose from any of Canon’s world-class EF lenses, you get a solid 10.1 megapixel sensor and essentially the same software features (save for a few) that Canon’s higher-end cameras have. The Rebel XTi comes in your choice of a silver or black plastic body (internals and lens mounts are, as above, made of metal).

Yet more expensive is the Nikon D80, a true workhorse in this price range, and a camera that will carry you years into the future with its exceptional array of features and its high image quality. Also 10 megapixels, what the D80 brings to the table is not higher resolution, but simply better features.

I encourage anyone interested in getting into the SLR marketplace to carefully scrutinize Digital Photography Review, the award-winning camera review site for feature comparisons and informed opinions.

Take a class

PC World suggests, in an article titled New Year’s Resolutions, that taking a class is a fun and exciting way to turn over a new leaf with your digital camera.

Photojojo also suggested taking a class in their recent post 19 New Year’s Photo Resolutions — Goodbye 2007, Hello Two Thousand and Awesome!.

Coincidentally I will be an instructor on several art photography workshops this coming year, first in Death Valley National Park (California), then Chicago, of course the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee/North Carolina), and finally Acadia National Park in Maine. I’m also teaching a beginning-level three-day course on digital workflow out in Santa Cruz, California (a great place to be no matter what the season) in July.

There are plenty of spots available in all workshops at the moment, so don’t hesitate to reserve yours now!

Read all about the workshops and register on our website, Art Photo Workshops.

Take more photographs

The best and fastest way to get better at photography is to take more photographs. I have personally resolved to make 2008 a very productive year of photography and to be more diligent in my experimentation (which was the purpose for creating this blog in the first place those years ago).

So from me to you, my wonderful readers, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

If you’d like to see some of the most incredible and moving images from 2007, do take a few minutes (or more than a few minutes) to flip through Reuters’ “Pictures of the Year.”

There are over 100 photographs from all over the world captured during some of the most pivotal events of 2007, many of which I actually didn’t hear about until now. It’s amazing exactly how much happens in a year that we can be completely unaware of.

While these are photojournalism images, many of them could effortlessly qualify as fine art.

Without further ado, Reuters’ Pictures of the Year 2007

My headline might be a bit of an overstatement, but digital photography stands closer than ever to forcing out film as the number one choice among new photographers. In fact, I might go so far as to say that digital is the number one choice among new photographers, though that doesn’t mean that film has become obsolete.

It’s more important than ever for photographers to be aware of what’s happening in the digital world as today’s youngest generation of photographers enter the scene and wonder why anyone ever got their hands wet while making images. (more…)

Despite the almost constant urge to do so, I have never posted one of those “link wrap-ups” wherein I present you all with a bunch of links I ran across over the course of the week (or month, or year) and expect you to thank me for it.

I suppose it’s because I feel cheap passing someone else’s content along without at least some sort of substantive editorial. Nevertheless, I do read a lot of blogs, not all of them photography-related, and I often run across things that I think you guys and gals would be interested in. It would be a shame for that to go to waste.

So today I bring you my very first ever I Hate Link Wrap-Ups post. (more…)

Back in June I wrote an article about the Creative Commons project, Creative Commons: Good Idea?, in which I advocated the use of their licenses for promotional purposes and how that approach ties in with socially-driven sites like Wikipedia and Flickr.

This month the debate over Creative Commons licenses in photography flared up once more, with Jim Goldstein declaring that he would never use CC licenses, and Brian Auer retorting that he had before and would most certainly continue to in the future. Underscoring the points made by both of these fine fellows was an interview I read with author Cory Doctorow about giving away free electronic versions of books that brought many relevant points into play.

I’m revisiting the topic here today, not simply to agree or disagree with anything Goldstein, Auer, or Doctorow said, but rather to paint a picture of why I think the Creative Commons plays a very valuable role in photography in today’s copy-and-paste culture and why you should be thinking very seriously about how it can help you. (more…)