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The White Sands Folio, the May 2010 Print of the Month, now ships with a PDF version compatible with Mac, PCs and iPad. This version is free with all Folio purchases. If you already placed your order, you will receive a link to download your iPad version shortly.
If you have not placed your order we decided to offer 5 more Folios at the Special Offer price because of the new PDF version announcement.
To watch the PDF on your iPad, we recommend you use the Goodreader app. Goodreader is only $0.99 on the Apple Store and it works beautifully with PDF files.
You can see the contents of the White Sands Folio, and read the detailed description of the Folio, at this link: White Sands Folio.
8 – Make the final print your goal
Do not just learn how to take and optimize photographs. Learn how to print them well. Nothing is as beautiful as a fine art print. Photographs in books, magazines, on the web, etc. are all reproductions
9 – Mat and present your work in a professional manner.
The print is not the end of the process. A Fine Art photograph needs to be matted and framed.
10 – Focus your work and efforts on projects
Don’t photograph everything that attracts your eye. Be selective and deliberate in your choice of subject matted.
11- Share your work with others and build an audience
Do not keep your prints in boxes. Learn how to exhibit and promote your work so you can share them with others. It is by exhibiting your work that you will find an audience.
12-Do not try to recreate the wheel.
Instead, learn from those who know and teach how to do what you want to do. Get advice from those who are where you want to be.
13- Develop a Personal Style
Having a personal Style will make you stand out from everyone else
14-Do not expect success overnight
It takes time to do this well. Patience, perseverance and not giving up are the keys to success. You can only progress step by step
15-Do not overestimate talent.
Talent is not within our control. Hard work and not giving up are. Many more succeed because of hard work than because of talent. We succeed because we control what we do.
This Top 15 list is part of the Top 32 List we study during our field workshops. Consider attending one of our workshops if this first part of the list has shown you things you need to work on to improve your photography.
The iPad has a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels at 132 pixels per inch (ppi). Therefore to prepare your photographs for display on the iPad you need to resize them to that size. That way you will minimize the file size and maximize the number of photographs you can store on your iPad.
After sizing my images to iPad size and using Save for Web with a high jpeg setting, my photographs are around 180 kb in size.
To speed up resizing photographs, I created two droplets in Photoshop that I am making available free, by download at this link:
http://www.beautiful-landscape.com/OPP/iPad resize droplets.zip
These droplets make the process of resizing photographs for the iPad automatic. All you need to do is drag and drop your photographs onto the droplet. You can drag 1 photo or several photos at once on the droplet. They will be resized then saved to your desktop.
One droplet –iPad resize 1024 horizontal– is for horizontal photographs and the other –iPad resize 1024 Vertical– is for vertical photographs.
The droplet will resize and sharpen your photographs then save them to your desktop.
Let me know how these droplets work for you. There may be problems using them to save photographs to your desktop since the script indicates saving them to my computer.
Natalie and I recorded a new podcast about the Apple iPad yesterday. This podcast is available at this link:
Apple iPad Podcast with Alain and Natalie Briot
You can also listen and watch the other 50+ installments of my podcast on our Podcast Home Page at this link:
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Podcast-home.html
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This section of Reflections is where you can ask questions, make requests or suggest ideas for future content.
Just post your questions, suggestions, requests or ideas as comments. Your question will then be answered in thsi thread or in a new thread.
Alternatively, you can also email me your questions at alain@beautiful-landscape.com
Thank you.
Alain
I recently felt the need to add a “blog,” for lack of a better term, to my website.
A “blog” offers something that a website does not offer. First, it offers the possibility for readers to post comments, making it an interactive environment.
Second, it offers the opportunity to post short entries instead of full-size essays. Because short entries can be written relatively quickly, a blog opens the door to more frequent posts.
I am not so fond of the word blog, and I use it because I do not see another word that would apply. However, I will thereafter refer to this area of my website as “Reflections.” I much prefer using the name of this blog than the word “blog.”
Reflections focuses on four areas of photography: technique, art, marketing and success.
I added success to the three areas of photography that I have been teaching so far (technique, art and marketing) because I take it for granted that the purpose of our efforts in to be successful in creating Fine Art Photographs.
Thererfore, if the goal is to be successful, it makes sense that talking about success as a field of study is necessary.
For several years I have been writing about success without publishing these writings. I wasn’t sure where these fit in the context of Fine Art Photography. My decision to publish these writings stem from the realization that success is something that is present, and that affects, all human endeavors. As such, it affects photography and it should be studied, and talked about, in the context of practicing photography.
To do so is one of the goals of this blog. How this will happen is what we are about to find out in the coming weeks and months.
Stay tuned for what is shaping up to be an interesting journey.
Alain Briot
April 4th, 2010
PS-Notice that clicking on the thumbnail in each entry will expand the image to full width and will present the essay by itself.
We got an iPad. I wasn’t sure if I wanted one, so I did not pre order it. But when April 3rd rolled in I felt the irresistible urge to go to the closest Apple Store and get one. I checked that my website, and Reflections, loaded properly on it (they do) and I purchased the 64gb model.
I don’t always get the latest technology right away. Often I prefer to wait and hear how people like it before committing to a purchase. Here I did not feel like waiting.
I had been waiting long enough for a portable device with a large screen that wasn’t a laptop. I liked the iPod, but never upgraded to the wifi model because of what I saw as a ridiculous small screen.
I wanted a large screen to look at my music collection in iTunes, look at my photographs at an acceptable size, and surf the web without the need for a magnifier. The iPad offers all of that.
Size matters. As time goes by I tend to purchase larger things. Being from France, I started small. Things are small, or smaller, in Europe. The reason is lack of space and a more conservative approach to resources. Things in the US are larger. And large can be satisfying. Large has to be experienced. If you grow up with things large you may want to experience things small. I grew up with things small and I want to experience things large.
I may be addicted by now. Lately I have opted to acquire the largest option available in the various things that I purchased. It may be that I think large. It may be that I live in a large home with lots of space for things to be in. It may be that I have developed a taste for things large.
Back to the iPad. I plan to use it to write on after I add a wireless keyboard to it. There is an iPad docking keyboard, but I don’t think it is available yet. I also plan to use it as a mobile digital portfolio. It takes hardly any space and is lighter than stack of prints. Plus it does so much more than just show photographs.
Here are our current workshop openings:
1 – 2010 Summit – Registration is open
The 2010 Summit is open for registration. Our guest speaker this year is Mac Holbert. Uwe Steinmueller, myself and Mac will each give 3 new presentations. The Summit location is Moab, Utah. Moab is a photographers paradise, with Arches and Canyonlands National Parks next door plus countless other photographic locations! We won’t have a problem finding world class subjects to photograph!
After The Summit, Natalie and I offer a 3 day field workshop to little known areas of Navajoland. Join us to photograph locations we discovered during the 7 years we lived in Canyon de Chelly. This is going to be a fantastic finale to the Summit. You are guaranteed to come back with tons of great images, plus the knowledge to make world class prints!
Finally, Register before May 1st and save not $100 but $200. This is our best “early bird” special offer ever. However, only the 20 first registrations we receive qualify for this $200 saving. Therefore, don’t delay and register today.
Click here to read the detailed description
2 - Spring 2010 Antelope Canyon Workshop: 1 seat available due to cancellation
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Workshop-Antelope-5days-Spring-10.html
3 -Zion, Bryce, Escalante, Capitol Reef Workshop: only 1 seat left Sold Out
Discover and photograph four National Parks with study focused on Light and composition to refine your artistic and technical skills:
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Workshop-Zion-Bryce-Canyon-Escalante-2010.html
4 – Fall 2010 Antelope Canyon Workshop: 2 seats left Sold out
Study color, light and composition in one of the most amazing locations anywhere in the world. Build your artistic and technical skills and learn to visualize photographs to develop a personal style:
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Workshop-Antelope-5days-Fall-10.html
5 – Route 66 Workshop: 4 seats left
A unique workshop focused on creativity and National Parks: Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon:
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Workshop-Route-66-5days-Fall-2010.html
6 – Mono Lake and Eastern Sierra Workshop: 2 seats left
Photograph the beauty of the Eastern Sierra Nevada area in Fall colors!
http://beautiful-landscape.com/Workshop-Sierra-Nevada-and-Mono-Lake-10.html
