I stumbled on Trey Ratcliff from an episode of “This week in photography”, one of Leo Lapore’s twit empire video podcasts. And it was an eye opener for me. His site stuckincustoms has a wealth of information on HDR photography and his pictures are stunningly beautiful. He also writes and sounds friendly and down to earth. So I have been reading and absorbing his materials for the last few weeks. He was the influence on my decision to get the Nikon D7000 too. I didn’t go all out or even to the mid-range camera that he recommended. But I figured it is good enough for me, at least at this stage of my photo taking ability.
I’m yet to produce an HDR photo with his method. There are software I need to get still. But I have already started thinking about organizing my photos and videos. His ebook “Digital Workflow for Photographers” is an excellent guide to get you on the right track. He stresses that his method isn’t the bible for digital workflow and organization, it’s just a guide. But I would probably adopt 90% of what he does.
Ordered the photoshop CS5 for the mac. It is supposed to arrive in a few days. So at last, I will learn how to use photoshop. I have been half heartedly playing with it for years. But the sparse usage never allowed me to retain any knowledge. This time, I think I will stick to it as a new found hobby. The online Photoshop User TV has video tutorials, now on episode 261. Great resource to learn the darn thing, again thanks to Trey’s reference.
The other day, Shirley Maclaine was on Oprah. She is now in her 70s and her talk on new age stuff grabbed my interest. I am reading one of her books now. I am always interested in the spiritual books and talks, buddhist, catholic, new age, I don’t discriminate. There are wisdoms in all as long as you keep an open mind and an attitude to learn.
To that aspect, I am thankful that I am a human being that has the mental capacity to learn about all these things that interest me. And there are so many things that can keep the mind working and learning for a long, long time. Life is never boring with a world of interesting skills and knowledge to obtain.