Category Archives: General ramblings

For all the stuff that doesn’t fit elsewhere!

*Happy Birthday Alien Skin! 30% OFF EVERYTHING

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Alien Skin is turning 18!  To celebrate, they’re offering 30% off of any of their plugins until next Tuesday, September 20th.  I’m partial to Exposure 3, Bokeh 2 and Snap Art 3 myself.  I use those three regularly and have written reviews on them.  Hit the links below if you’re interested in seeing any of these in action.  Otherwise, visit Alienskin.com to download free trials, or purchase their plugins.  Happy birthday to the Alien Skin team, thanks for the great software and here’s to many more years to come!

Read my take on a few of the Alien Skin software plugins:

Exposure 3

Bokeh 2

Snap Art 3

Happy shooting!

Tyson

*WILL WORK FOR FUN! Your questions about life, love and photography, answered.

by in General ramblings and tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Do you want to know more about a particular technique?  Are you curious about purchasing a particular camera or lens?  Do you ever see an image and wonder “how do they do that?”  Ask away, I will do my best to answer anything you can think of, or at least find someone and direct you to who can.  I enjoy all of the email I get, and do my best to answer each of them as accurately as I’m able.  So, I thought, “why not try and open this up so that everyone can enjoy and benefit?”  As summer comes into focus, I’m finding my time being stretched in quite a few different directions, juggling projects and life, so let me know what you are interested in and I’ll do the leg work.  Hopefully we can all learn something along the way!  Go ahead and drop a comment below, or email me and I will answer them/showcase them as they come in. Read on…

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*Mr and Mrs Squeeze wine down with a trip to Oregon Wine Country.

by in General ramblings, Travel and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Now, I know this is a photography blog, but with the smell of damp earth in my nose and the invitation of blue skies, I felt the need to momentarily transform this into a travel blog, kinda.  Mrs Squeeze and I have been looking forward to our first joint, private overnight outing since the birth of Little Baby What’s-his-face just over 19 months ago.  This last weekend, we achieved our goal and finally severed the cord.  LBWHF did just fine, by the way.  Didn’t miss us one bit, so ends up it was his parents that were challenged by the perceived attachment issue.

Anyway, on to our little adventure and I’ll try to talk a bit about photography along the way just to maintain the greater theme…

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*Photovision 2011 discount!

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Well, the last time I posted the photovision discount I wasn’t sure if the purchaser would be purchasing the 2010 series (which I found to be very informative, but a little repetative) or the upcoming and recently started 2011 series which has added some real working pros that I’ve actually heard of along with more content per disk.

For those not familiar with Photovision, it is a series of 6 issues on DVD that includes behind the scenes interviews and over the shoulder shooting while professional photographers ply their trade.  Some of the information involved in the 2010 season has been invaluable.  There were a couple “participants” that I was getting rather tired of listening to toward the end, but they’ve lost a few of those folks and added contributors like Joel Grimes who, is a badass.  For this alone, I am completely stoked on this new season.  By clicking on the following link and entering the promo code “PVFAN” you too can receive the 6 DVD series (2.5 – 3 hrs per DVD) for a 75% discount!  Normally $199, using the link and code will drop it down to $49.

http://fansof.photovisionvideo.com/Tyson/050081

If you are interested in setting up your own photo business, have your own business or just enjoy watching working photographers as they shoot and share their settings, techniques, marketing tactics, post production tricks and trade secrets, it is well worth it.  I have already signed up for 2011.  I won’t lie, I get entered into a drawing for a 5DmkII for each subscription that is purchased through my link, so I’d be greatly in debt to anyone who is interested purchasing through this link, but regardless, I do think it is a worthwhile, educational and entertaining investment and wouldn’t be posting this if I felt otherwise, promise 🙂

Happy shooting,

Tyson

*30% off Alien Skin Software!!!!!!!!

by in General ramblings, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

(*while this is the older promotion, Alien Skin is currently offering a 30-40% off sale on all their software through April 17th, 2012 SEE HERE!)

I’m not the type to promote every discount or product out there (just the ones that I like), but having been fortunate enough to review a couple of the Alien Skin software products recently, I will say that A) they are a cool company with great folks representing them and B) they make a killer product.   That and I wanted to pass this along just in case anyone out there reading is interested.  I make no money from this and I’m honestly just passing this along because I like the folks involved with, and products offered from Alien Skin.

That’s all really.  If you’ve been interested in any of the Alien Skin software and haven’t pulled the trigger, they’re offering 30% off (and free updates/not upgrades mind you) until Tuesday March 15th.  If you’re interested in what I’ve had to say about them, you can read my personal experiences via the links below:

Alien Skin Exposure 3

Alien Skin Bokeh 2

I’ve not played around with the others yet, but I’m sure that any Alien Skin product would be worth while as long as it’s particular skill set appealed to you.  I would very strongly suggest at least trying out the free trials of both Exposure and Bokeh if you’ve not already to see if the discount rate is enough to push you.

You can download the trials or purchase any of the Alien Skin software directly from their website here: Alienskin.com

Have a great weekend!

Tyson

*Lensbaby’s sweet, ‘Sweet 35’

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

It’s here.  This, more than any other Lensbaby optic I’ve personally used, changes the Lensbaby from a fun tool, into a productive, creative asset.  Not that any of the other Lensbaby optics are bad, quite the contrary, I think that the Lensbaby system is and has always been a wonderful addition to my photographic arsenal, it’s just that up until now, one big challenge with any of the Lensbaby optics has been the inability to alter the size of the sweet spot via aperture adjustment quickly on the fly…  Now, you can bring all of the cool, selective focus effects into concert with the adaptability and exposure tuning qualities of a more standard lens.  Read on for a quick video and image samples…

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*Sony NEX5 vs. Panasonic GF1, the showdown.

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Hello and welcome to my blog!  For those of you who’ve read some of my other articles I’m sure you know how I feel about the GF1, and for those who are just stumbling across the blog, welcome and thanks for taking the time to stop by.  While I’ve been shooting with the GF1 for over a year now, I have just recently been gifted the opportunity to use, and review a Sony NEX5.  Thank you Sony, and my friends at Lensbaby for making this happen.  While new cameras are continuing to be announced and released, I still feel that these two cameras provide the most compelling overall packages if you’re looking for a high performance compact/pocketable camera.  Getting to extensively use the NEX5 has gone a long way in dispelling some of the shortcomings I’d felt it really exhibited upon my first interaction with one a few months back.  I feel that the GF1 is the best balance of function and size in the micro 4/3 realm, so I was very curious to see how it stacked up against a very cool camera in the NEX5.  I do feel there are some serious pros and cons for each of these cameras and depending on your needs, one may be head and shoulders above the other.

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*Sony NEX5 + Lensbaby Tilt Transformer = Unadulterated Fun

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

*Firstly, thank you to Lensbaby and Sony for the early Christmas gift!  Being a micro 4/3 man primarily when it comes to my compact MILC camera system of choice, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t very curious about the new NEX cameras.  My experience with the NEX5 prior to this was limited to over the counter tinkering and parking lot shooting.  I will do a more in depth review of the NEX5 vs. the GF1 soon as the NEX5 both confirmed some of my doubts and opened my eyes to it as a viable choice for those looking into a small mirrorless interchangeable lens compact camera.  Combined with a Lensbaby Tilt Transformer and Composer front, I feel it provides NEX system users an easy, affordable and fun way to greatly diversify the NEX system.

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*A photographic study in composition, Antoni Gaudí style.

by in General ramblings, Photographic Study Masters Series, Photography tutorials and tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Antoni Gaudi 1852 – 1926

This is the third article in what I’m now calling the “Masters” series.  First we had Lighting a la Rembrandt, then Color Theory with Matisse, and now I want to explore Composition through the work of Gaudi.  I hope you enjoy and would love to hear from you folks about future articles you’d like to see!  Enjoy…

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*Amsterdam

by in General ramblings, Travel and tagged , , | 11 Comments

bloemmarket at dawn

Sometimes a city provides you with a story of personal reflection and memory.  Remembering a certain, unrepeatable feeling, tied to an experience or some other memorable trigger lends itself as a tool with which to write these stories.  Luckily for me, Amsterdam has allowed me to add chapters to my story year after year.  It has become a second home as I’ve had to travel here each year for the last eight to conduct business (for my real job).  I count myself very fortunate that the industry I exist in professionally forces me to spend time each year in such a cool city.  Of course the obvious stereotyped assumptions make their way into the conversation whenever I mention that I travel here each year, but the history, kind nature and beauty of this city rivals any that I’ve been to.  Just make sure you look both ways before stepping foot out into the street, at least twice.

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