Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

If you’re as passionate about photography as I am, I have some great sources of photo inspiration for you to start your weekend.

Art of Composition Lectures

If you’re looking to improve your photography Art Wolfe (@artwolfe) is running a series of lectures on the Art of Composition in 5 cities through October. Check out the schedule here on his web site and if you sign up be sure to share that you found out about it via the JMG-Galleries blog. If you’re in the SF Bay area Art will be in San Jose on September 25th.

Inspiring Books & Prints

Michael E. Gordon (@MichaelEGordon) has released a folio of amazing large format black and white photographs of the Southern California desert aptly titled “Desert”. Thanks to Twitter I caught wind of the release of this folio right away and bought it without hesitation. Given Michael’s fine artistic eye and technical prowess I knew this folio would be great. Upon receiving it I was not disappointed, impressed not just by the great photographs, but the detail applied to the presentation of his work. At $99 “Desert” was a bargain. If you’re a fan of Michael’s work as well pick this one up before the price reverts to $129.

William Neill (@wgneill) has released an amazing collection of his early photos from Yosemite National Park in an eBook titled William Neill’s Yosemite: Volume One. William was kind enough to share a courtesy copy of his eBook with me and it brought back a flood of memories in reading his articles and viewing his photographs in years past. This particular eBook contains over 100 pages of inspiring photographs of Yosemite’s pristine beauty. If you’re unfamiliar with William Neill’s work this is certainly a great way to introduce yourself to his incredible photography. Well worth the $10 price tag for the digital edition.

David Sanger (@davidsanger) has a wonderful book San Francisco Bay, Portrait of an Estuary. David was kind enough to provide a courtesy copy of this book to me and its an amazingly well done book. The images & essays are excellent and the print quality is superb. If you’re attracted to the beauty of the San Francisco bay area or want to learn more about its rich natural history this is a must have. David has signed copies available on his site for only $29.99. Definitely worth checking out.

Have a great weekend and as I can I’ll continue to bring you more sources of photo inspiration.

At the end of this blog post are the 3 links to change your life and our planet for the better in 2010, showing you the way to reduce the amount of paper waste you receive.

The average person in the US receives nearly 11 pieces of junk mail each week, or 560 pieces a year. This amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail yearly, of which 44% goes straight to the landfill unopened and unread.

The best thing I did at the beginning of 2009 was stop receiving junk mail through traditional mail. This year was the first year I’d only receive legitimate letters and bills with no paper junk mail. My wife on the other hand didn’t take my lead immediately. The difference in our daily mail was quite stark. I’d receive 1-2 letters and she’d receive numerous offers and 5-6 catalogs.

• 100 million trees are cut down each year to produce junk mail.
• 1 million trees offset 48,000,000 pounds of carbon emissions.
• Eliminating junk mail in the US would offset 480,000 cars.

-matadorchange.com

While I’m happy that I took the steps necessary to stop the flood of junk mail I’ve recently taken the added step of opting out of receiving phone books. I haven’t used a phone book in years and I never knew how to stop them from being delivered… until now. How much is wasted in the manufacturing of phone books?

According to StopThePhoneBooks.com approximately 615 million phonebooks were produced last year

• 500 phone books take:– according to a study in California
• 17 to 31 trees- depending on how much is new paper and how is recycled paper
• 4100 kwh (a 3 bdrm house in Colorado uses about 600 -1500 kwh per month– so that about 3-6 months of electricity)
• 7000 gallons of water ( thats about 14 gallons of water per book).
• Then –how many gallons of gasoline for the delivery trucks? Gas for the trash trucks? Gas for the recycling trucks?
• So– how much did we use for 615 million phonebooks ? — Well, thats about 1.23 million times each of the numbers above — in just one year. Two years ago they only produced 450 million phone books.

If you’re interested in taking a step toward breaking this cycle of waste I highly recommend opting out of receiving junk mail and phone books. In fact I challenge you to tell 10 friends about the ability to opt-out of of junk mail and phone books in order to fast track improving our impact on the environment.

The official way to opt-in or opt-out of credit card or insurance offers
OptOutPrescreen.com

Another resource to opt-out of other direct marketing offers (junk mail)
Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Choice

How to opt out of receiving phone books
YellowPagesOptOut.com

Additional Information on this subject:

• Native Forest Network’s Guide to Stopping Junk Mail
• White Pages Look To Go Greener – NPR

Technorati Tags: Junk Mail, Phone Book, Opt-Out, Recycle, New Year, New Year Resolution

A few weeks back I was hunting for music that I could use on a web based video and had a challenging time. As a photographer who cares about rights to my work being respected, I felt it was important to share that same respect to musicians whose work I wanted to use. Searching and gaining permission to use music for my photo video proved to be a huge challenge and got me to respect the Creative Commons initiative all the more.

While getting permission to use All Rights Reserved creative content is as simple as asking permission it can be frustrating. I’m normally a very patient person, but when I had my video ready to go and I found the music I wanted to use it seemed like an eternity to hear back from the artist. Eventually the artist wrote me back 48 hours later and gave me permission to use any of his work in the future regardless of current licensing designation. I was lucky and found a very cool artist to collaborate with.

Ultimately I burned a lot of time searching for music. It would seem that there is a huge opening for a site to be created matching artists who want to share their work in conjunction with other artists for promotional and non/pseudo-commercial purposes. To me having a directory that matches musicians and photographers to use each others work for mutual promotion seems like a win-win proposition. Until my dream of such a directory becomes a reality below are 5 copyleft resources to search for music and 5 royalty-free stock music resources.

An important note:
Music designated as “No Derivative Works license” cannot be used for photo videos as explained on this Creative Commons page Legal Music for Videos.
So even if you find music you like with this CC license you’ll still need to retain approval from the artist, so build in approval time as you plan your videos release.

“Under CC licenses, synching the music to images amounts to transforming the music, so you can’t legally use a song under a CC No Derivative Works license in your video.“

5 Copyleft Resources For Music

1. CC Mixter
2. Internet Archive
3. Jamendo
4. Proud Music
5. Film Music by Moby
   “‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
   If you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.”

5 Stock Music Resources (Pay to License)

1. StockMusic.net
2. Shockwave-Sound.com
3. Triple Scoop Music
4. MediaMusicNow.co.uk
5. MagnaTune.com

Technorati Tags: stock music, copyleft music, copyleft, royalty-free,   royalty free, music, photo video, photography

Over the past two weeks a few sites have come to my attention that might pique your interest.

My friend Rebecca Jackrel has her work highlighted under the “Guest of the Month” section at the Conservation Photography web site of Delphin Ruché.

Michael Frye has launched a new blog as an extension of his web site that focuses on Yosemite National Park Photo Conditions.

Renowned photographer and friend Art Wolfe has relaunched his web site and added a blog. It looks as though the finishing touches are still being put on the blog, but its still worthy of checking out now.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Once again 2008 proved to be an incredibly productive year for the many photographers who read the JMG-Galleries blog. The results of this “Best Photos From 2008″ blog project puts a twist to the normal “Best of Photo” list by aggregating links to the work of 93 photographers from around the globe who are passionate and dedicated to their craft.

The results from “Best Photos From 2007″ by JMG-Galleries Blog Reader’s were impressive, but this year not only did the number of participants exceed expectation the quality and vision of those who submitted were exceptional. This year participants ran the gamut of experience from enthusiasts to professionals.

Enjoy and good luck picking out your favorite from these great submissions

1. “My Top 10 Favorite Photos of 2008” – Jim M. Goldstein
2. My Favorite Shots of the Year – View from the Little Red Tent by Edie Howe
3. 2008 Favorites – Photine by Laurie Ballesteros
4. My Nephew – Amit Goyal
   My nephew woke me up in the morning and was in a very chirpy mode when this was clicked
5. Another world (+Vorher/Nachher) – Visuelle Gedanken by Martin Wolf
   
6. Boy, Hanoi – The Sun Shines & The Igloo Melts by Jon Gresham
7. Best Photos from 2008 – Abraham Neben
8. Apocalyptic Capitalism – Sultana Sandwich by James Hill
9. Top 10 Photos of 2008, My first year in Wisconsin – Sierra Visions by Steven Bourelle
10. My Best Photos: 2008 – Shutter Photo by D Travis North
    This past year was a huge growth year for my digital photography skills which I feel is exhibited quite nicely in my photo favorites of 2008.
11. Best Photos From 2008 – G Dan Mitchell Photography
12. Protesting Prop 8 - Quan Photography by John Quan
13. Bir y?l böyle geçti… – Caglar.ca by Caglar Tukel
    Most of Photos taken during our traveling around Turkey and hiking around our hometown, Izmir.
14. My best shots of 2008 – Jonesblog by Bryan WIlliam Jones
15. Flamingo and Desert Landscape – pl?dys’s photoblog by Mike Reys
    Both pictures are from one of the most beautiful places on earth: Chile’s Atacama desert. The salt lakes there provide for some stunning colours and beautiful wildlife.
16. Suspended – Mark Groves Photography
17. My Favorite 10 Images from 2008 – IM Digital by Ivan Makarov
18. My Best Photo of 2008 – Matt Ward Photography
    This photo was taken in Oct at 7am after a cold night in Atlanta, GA.
19. Highlights of 2008 – Lori Jackson Photography
    In 2008, I picked up my camera again after a year long hiatus following pregnancy and my son’s birth.
20. Favorites from 2008 – Adventures Through The Lens by Rebecca Jackrel
21. Top Ten Photos of 2008 – Chris Moore Photography
22. My Photo Record – Kriz Cpec Photo Blog
23. Best of 2008 – Catavino by Ryan Opaz
24. Looking Forward and Back – Graf Nature Photography by Mark Graf
25. Lloyd’s Favorites of 2008 – L.D. Cross
26. My Favorite Photos from 2008 – Epic Edits by Brian Auer
    A selection of my favorite photos from 2008, broken down by each month and supplemented with a few thoughts.
27. Derryclare Lough – Focus Pocus by Albert MacSweeny
    My best photo of the year was when I was lucky enough to get a still lake in the usually turbulent west of Ireland
28. Best of 2008 – News and Views by Dave Wilson
29. Needle – Andel’s Photoblog by Andel Früh
    This photo has been shot with the kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6) in retro position (front lens to the camera)
30. Year in Pictures – Marcin Retecki
31. 2008 Top Ten – Lois Elling
32. My Best Photos of 2008 – Out of My Mind by Steven L. Mullen
    These are travel and nature shots taken in Michigan, China, and locally.
33. One from 2008 – Hockley Photography by Aaron Hockley
    It’s a photo taken at night, looking across a bridge towards another photographer also taking a picture of the same ferris wheel as I was.
34. 2008 in Pictures – Sawlani Photography by Hitesh Sawlani
35. My Top 10 Photos for 2008 - by Neil Creek Photography
36. Best of 2008 – The Quiet Picture by Minna Kinnunen
    My 10 favourites from 2008, everything from flower closeups to landscapes and starry nights!
37. Best of 2008 – by Stig Nygaard
    Just a quick little mixed selection of what I consider my best photos from 2008
38. My Top Ten Photos from 2008 – Korn on the Blog by Justin Korn
    Of the 1,800+ images I uploaded to Flickr this year, these are what I thought were my top 10.
39. Blog Project: “your Best Photos from 2008″ – Jim’s Photography by Jim Wheeler
40. My Best Photos from 2008 – TrevorCarpenter.com by Trevor Carpenter
41. Best Photos of 2008 – by Dave Reichert
42. 2008 Favorites – by Beth Madison
43. 01/01/2009 Best of 2008 – Brad Barton Photography
44. 2008: My Favorite Photos – My Digital Life by Jeremy Brooks
45. 2008: The year in photographs – Katie the Scrapbook Lady by Katie
46. Gotham. Or maybe London – SFT Photography by Steve Thomas
    I love the dark and moody feel, combined with the futuristic look of the building. I really enjoyed shooting it!
47. My Best Photos of 2008 – Malphoto.com by Andre Maltais
    I’m particularly proud of these submissions this year, as it seems I’ve made some great strides in my photography from the beginning of the year.
48. Best of 2008 Project – Photos From The Top Floor by Carsten Fischer
49. La Arcada seating on a rare rainy October morning – gZphotoGraph
50. Jaguar – by Jarrod Erbe Photography
    This jaguar image was taken at the Milwaukee County Zoo. The background was generated using a combination of Aperture, Photoshop Elements, and DFT Light.
51. Best of 2008? – Suzy Walker, Underwater Photoblog
    My top ten fav travel, underwater and macro photos taken in 2008
52. My best shots of 2008 РTemujinPhoto Blog by Jọo Almeida
53. Best of 2008 – by Rick Goldwasser
54. My Top 10 Images of 2008 – The Jim Stamates Collection by Jim Stamates
55. #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 – Mannedspace: Photographs by MT Fanders
56. Best 10 of 2008 – by Duffy Knox
57. Future Christmas Card – by Massimo Belloni
58. Best Photos of 2008 – MIZSPONTANEITY: A Girl With A Camera by Elaine
    I got a Nikon D40X for Christmas 2007, and although some of these photos were with my trusty Sony W70 point-and-shoot, these are my favorite 10 results of my first year with a digital SLR.
59. Best of 2008 – Changing Perspectives by Jenni Brehm
60. My Best of 2008 – by Eliya Selhub
    In 2008, I have found myself increasingly drawn to animals as subjects, and a slight cartoonish absurdity always appeals to me.
61. My Best Photos From 2008 – Lilahpops – Plunging into Photography by Anthea Brown
    Looking back over my photos for the past year shows my increasing interest in post-processing experimentation alongside my favourite macro format.
62. My top 10 favorite photos of 2008 – The Taeleman’s Blog by Kris Taeleman
63. My Favorite Photos of 2008 – Coulter Photos by Scott Coulter
64. Favorites of 2008 – XGray Vision by Stephen Gray
65. My Top 10 Favorite Images of 2008 – Cornforth Images by Jon Cornforth
    Spectacular nature and wildlife photography, photos, and pictures by award winning professional photographer Jon Cornforth.
66. Sitting Backwards on My Horse – latoga photography By Greg Lato
67. Top ten images of 2008 – Enlightened Images by Gary Crabbe
    These are some of the image I took in 2008, and which rose toward the top of the – I Like – pile.
68. Best 10 photos of 2008 – Have Camera Will Travel by Paul Dymond
    Images from professional Australian travel photographer Paul Dymond which ironically were all taken pretty close to home.
69. Best of 2008 – Heidi Donat
70. Best Photos of 2008 – by Luca Filigheddu Photography
71. Favourites of 2008 – by Chris Brown
72. Best of 2008 – by William Kahn
73. Pics of the pops 2008 – fotoVoyager by William Fawcett
74. My Top 10 Photos of 2008 – Always Breaking by Gary Hegenbart
75. Best of 2008 – by Trevin Chow
    This is a set of my best photos that I took during 2008 which is a combination of Flickr’s “interestingness” meter and my own selection.
76. Best of 2008 – Hotel Yankee Foxtrot by Alex McGeagh
    A collection of the better images captured in a progressive and productive year for me.
77. Top 10 Photos of 2008 – Digital Kloc Photography Blog by Brian Kloc
78. Burrard-Lucas Top Ten Photographs of 2008 – Burrard-Lucas Photography by William Burrard-Lucas
    We are brothers from the UK with a shared passion for wildlife photography – in 2008 we followed Meerkats in the Kalahari, stalked Jaguars in the wetlands of Brazil and waded through swamps at night to photograph Caimans…
79. My best 10+3 pictures of 2008 – All Day I Dream About Photography by Antoine Khater
80. Best of 2008 on Highway 89 – Ann Torrence Photography
    Transecting the west from Mexico to Canada on US89.
81. Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance – by Dave Fitch
    A railway bridge in Leith [Edinburgh] that was restored and then left to rot. It’s not perfectly symmetrical, but then neither is the bridge
82. My Top 10 Photographys of 2008 – Nuwomb Bits by Scott Webb
83. Best of 2008 – Matt Sallee Photography
84. My 10 best photos of 2008 – Stephen Trainor Photography
    Mostly landscapes, mostly of the Southwest, but with a hint of other anglophone countries.
85. 10 in 2008 – k|d loftis photography
    My favorite images from 2008 which include weddings, maternity and newborns, families and babies and a few personal images from the year.
86. My 10 Favorite Images of 2008 – Della Huff Photography
    My ten favorites from 2008 include California landscapes and cityscapes, with a couple of extra goodies thrown in for fun!
87. Best Photos of 2008 – by Dave Schumaker
88. Best of 2008 – by Jay Goodrich Photography
89. My best photos from 2008 – All Narfed Up by Bryan Villarin
    Choosing my best photos from 2008 was really hard to narrow down, especially since it was my first year with a SLR camera.
90. Mein Flickr Photostream 2008 – Best of – by Stefan Neuweger
91. My Best Photos from 2008 – Why Yet Another Photo Place by Rafa
92. Best Photos from 2008 – by Daria Sukhanovska
    Only until i created this set of 13 photos, i realized how much progress i have done this year: I have traveled a lot, got one photo printed in the magazine and had my first own personal exhibition in the university library and simply had fun with my photos
93. My Best of 2008 – by Phil Price Photography

Technorati Tags: Best of 2008, Photography, Blog Project, Photographers

Technically its been a month, but I’m now a Greener Photography member.

Greener Photography Member 2008

Greener Photography is a place for the photographic community to consider the environment; learn to conserve and better preserve our resources and images; and connect by sharing suppliers, ideas, and methods.

I discovered Greener Photography through Twitter about 5 weeks ago and promptly applied. The prospect of the photography community collectively pulling together to:

1. Lobby for & learn about greener products
2. Educate each other to greener practices
3. Create and spread ideas that are environmentally sound

is a great cause to join and support. You may have heard me mention this web site in late November on PhotoNetCast, but I wanted to be sure to directly mention it here on my blog.

I invite all to learn more about Greener Photography and inquire about joining. The application is a little lengthy, but well worth filling out. If you take the plunge I also invite you to spread the word about this effort to help it gain momentum. With your support and the support of photographers you know we can push for greener products that use less resources and are more eco-friendly.

Technorati Tags: eco-friendly, photography, green, Greener Photography, conservation

Chase Jarvis, a photographer whose work and business acumen I greatly respect, has announced that he’ll sponsor one lucky photographer to ASMP’s Strictly Business 2 event in Chicago. I attended Strictly Business 2 in Los Angeles and was incredibly impressed by it.
See Review: ASMP Strictly Business 2

See Chase’s web site for more info:
WIN a FREE Trip To ASMP Strictly Business 2 – Chicago

Technorati Tags: Chase Jarvis, Strictly Business 2, SB2, ASMP, photography, business

I don’t talk about it much, but in addition to photography I’m also a web strategist with over 10 years of web marketing experience. On a day to day basis I’m constantly exploring and using a variety of web services and technologies that enable me to more optimally market my photography, track trends and track instances of copyright infringement. I’ve begun to take some of the core services and technologies I use on a daily basis for granted, but a recent conversation with a friend refreshed my perspective on this. As a result I wanted to take advantage of my recent epiphany and share 5 services/technologies I think are invaluable to photographers marketing their work online.

5. Google Reader
This online and free RSS reader is extremely well designed and easy to use. First and foremost RSS readers in general are a great way to access and read articles quickly minimizing the time it takes to open and load web sites individually. At a minimum I would recommend using this RSS reader if not any reader for that matter to improve ones productivity. One nice thing I finally took the time to do is to create a custom tab to display the top 7 sites I like to keep tabs on. The end result is a fast way for me to check the latest additions to 7 sites in one quick glance.

4. Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. Rather than keeping your bookmarks tied to a local machine you can save your favorite bookmarks to this web site. If you’re on a machine different than your own you can login and access your bookmarks anywhere. In addition you can tag bookmarks, add friends to your network to view and share recent bookmarks and you can also employ widget functionality on your blog to display recent pages that you’ve bookmarked. At a minimum I use this to consolidate and improve the searchability of my bookmarks. The site has been invaluable as I move back and forth between different machines.

3. Flickr
For all its flaws I’m still a believer in Flickr. Why? Pure and simple ease of use and traffic. The site is dirt simple to use… sometimes to its detriment as people pilfer photos from the site, but as a photo publisher/fan you can’t beat the ease of viewing and searching photos. This leads to my point about traffic on Flickr. Flickr is the 800lb gorilla of image sharing sites. With 2+ billion images in their system a lot of eyes are drawn to the site. As a marketer there is a saying… “fish where the fish are”. Casting a line out to see if you get any bites for sales/licensing opportunities is hit or miss, but as time has shown it does happen. My recommendation to fellow photographers on Flickr… avoid giving your work away for free and learn when to cut your losses with someone inquiring about using your work. If someone is contacting you about using your image it has value to the person, recognize this and negotiate.

2. Technorati
Technorati is a blog search engine. It’s a great resource to look for content, track blogs you like, track your blog authority, fans of your blog and set up keyword based Watchlists. Technorati is but one of many blog search engines, but it is one that is particularly well known. If you’re putting your photographic work online it pays to use the service to track references of your name and/or domain. In the process you may just discover your images being used without consent or in ways you might not approve of.

1. Google Alerts
Similar to Technorati Watchlists I’ve set up Google Alerts for my name and my domain name. Google Alerts then sends me regularly scheduled emails identifying new content including my specified search terms. Links are provided in the email to click through to see the page containing the specified search terms. This has been the number one tool I’ve used to identify inappropriate use of my photography online.

Google Alert Sign-Up Page

Google Alert Email

Technorati Tags: Google, alert, Technorati, services, technology, photographer, photography, photo, copyright, infringement, tracking, Flickr, RSS, reader, Del.icio.us