Photoshop and Illustrator Stylized Backgrounds

This week we're going to combine Photoshop and Illustrator to produce
some very stylish background effects that would be difficult with just
one program alone. You'll see that, starting out with just a few simple
lines in Illustrator, we can use the Blend tool to create a very
popular effect that has a 3D feel to it. Then we'll move into Photoshop
and finish it off with the brushing and special effects that's made
Photoshop so popular. Let's get started.

http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=426

Enhancing Hair in Photoshop

When it comes to improving portraits in Photoshop, we often think of
the facial features and skin as the main areas for improvement. But in
this week's video we're going to take a look at working with hair to
really help add more depth to a person's photo and build a more
dramatic look.

http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=427

Digital Photography School

Great website for photography beginners and pros.

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog

MooTools Beginner

This is an excellent post to help anyone get started with adding MooTools functionality to their website or blog.

http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/08/mootools-basic-tips-for-web-designer.html

Better Landscape Shots

There are some very basic things you can do to achieve a decent landscape shot.

1. Time of Day
Shoot your landscape in the mornings and evenings. The light temp is warmer hence casting long shadows that give a three-dimensional feel to the shot. You'll want to note where the light falls at different times of day on the different scenes you'd like to capture.

2. Location, Location, Location
Before shooting a scene, get the lay of the land and potential shots. I like to do a 'dry' run shooting a landscape, then go back another day after I've assessed where the ideal locations are for shots. Then when you go back try and achieve some interesting angles and perspectives by putting yourself in shooting locations someone may not necessarily think of. Perched in a tree, down on the ground or perhaps jetting the camera off of a cliff on a monopod with the timer set. Typically you will get a more even exposure with the sun behind you, try to avoid that — it will over-expose the light making your shot dull.

3. Highlights and shadows
The exposure for the sky and foreground often differs by a wide gap and most meters in point-and-shoots will be fooled into optimizing the settings for the foreground which burn away the highlights in the sky. If your shooter has manual exposure mode or exposure compensation, try underexposing the scene by one stop to retain more information in the sky. It is better to lose shadow details than highlights. Use a tripod when you leave the shutter open longer.

4. Skies and clouds
You can't control when clouds are going to roll by or what shape they'll be in. But when they do, there is an intense sense of depth to your picture insighting childhood imaginations of cloud shapes. For a more intense-looking blue sky, attach a polarizing filter to your lens. They are inexpensive and will also serve to protect your lens'.

5. Silky waters
Waterfalls and streams are tricky elements to photograph. Although a tack-sharp shot looks nice, it doesn't represent fast-moving nature. If your shooter allows, reduce the shutter speed and use a tripod. Depending on what you're trying to achieve, these settings will make the water appear to be smooth and silky, thus making it more visually exciting.

6. Animals
If possible try and capture animals in their environment to add movement scene. Birds, deer or any mammal will add life to the photograph.

Ten 20th-Century Photographers You Should Know

I've been really into photography lately and my mom sent me this MSN article by Andy Grundberg that I wanted to post. It is a great start to delving into some of the major influentials of modern photography.

~ESC

---

Photography has become such a pervasive part of life that the
average American may encounter 1,000 camera images per day. The
medium's innovators influence the way we perceive the world around us.

Arts writer and curator Andy Grundberg identifies ten 20th-century photographers you should get to know--pioneering artists who helped to shape the field of modern photography.

1. Eugène Atget
(1857-1927)--a French photographer who proved at the beginning of the
century that well-made photographs could document city life and be
filled with poetry.

2. Alfred Stieglitz
(1864-1946)--an artist and entrepreneur who brought photography into
the 20th century by championing new ways of seeing, inspired in part by
European modern art.

3. Edward Steichen
(1879-1973)--one of the leading advocates for fine-art photography
before World War I (1914-1918), he later became a master of magazine
portraiture, fashion photography, and advertising imagery.

4. Edward Weston
(1886-1958)--known for his close-ups of vegetables and nudes, he was
the purest of the purist photographers who believed that photographs
should be direct, sharp, and essential.

5. Man Ray (1890-1976)--an American in Paris during the heyday of surrealism who showed that photography depended not on the camera or even on the lens, but on the imagination of the photographer.

6. Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)--who not only captured the grandeur of the American West
but also dramatically increased the public's appreciation of the art of
modern photography.

7. Walker Evans
(1903-1975)--who documented America during the 1930s much as Atget had
done earlier in France, but with a fascination for the details of
small-town life.

8. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908- )--who used a small 35-millimeter camera to freeze ballet-like moments in the flux of everyday life.

9. Robert Frank (1924- )--whose skeptical impressions of life in the United States during the 1950s are collected in The Americans, the most influential photography book of the 20th century.

10. Cindy Sherman
(1954- )--whose peculiar brand of self-portraiture brought photography into the forefront of the contemporary art world and the art marketplace in the 1980s.