*@Topazlabs ReMask Prime?! A powerful standalone quick selection app for Mac users + FREE GIVEAWAY! (not an April Fools Joke)

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Firstly, this is not an April Fools ruse.  I am giving away activation codes for this new software 🙂 Technology can be embraced or ignored, it can be celebrated or feared, or it can fumble somewhere in between all those things.  I myself, really enjoy much of what is on offer, especially as a photographer.  I totally appreciate those that take a purist approach, but for me, I love playing with digital imagery using various software applications, and here my friends, is a very cool, very affordable piece of remarkable software.  Enter, Topaz ReMask Prime (click here to see in in the Mac App Store).  A fully functional, standalone desktop version of the irreplaceable ReMask software.  If you already own ReMask and run it as a plugin for PS, you’ll probably not need a standalone version (although, I’m starting to see a benefit), but for those who do not, this is a very cheap way to see the power of ReMask in all its glory.

Come on in to see some info and examples from Topaz ReMask Prime, a new standalone app built on the standard ReMask plugin…

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*Should we continue to do the monthly Flickr challenges? It’s up to you guys, w/ @mirrorlessons

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I know that the umpteenth Flickr redesign last month made it really hard to use, or even find the best part of Flickr in the community discussions inside the various groups.  A few days after the redesign, Yahoo finally realized they’d pissed (probably) millions of users off by ignoring the biggest and best part of Flickr, by trying to turn it into an Instagram knockoff, but from what I’ve seen, it may have turned many of us off, and has since seen a near halt in our monthly challenges.

We’ve noticed that for the first time, our monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge Theme thread for this month has died on the vine and it has led Heather, Mat and myself to question if we really want to continue to do this.  Is it just a hiccup, or are people just not into Flickr in the same way anymore?  The theme, released in June (and subsequently carried over into July due to minimal activity) is “Friendship” and has, in nearly two months, provided a fraction of the normal amount of submissions that we’ve seen on any other given month prior.  Do you guys want to keep doing this?

I ask because it is quite a bit of work for us to keep up with it, posting various threads and polls throughout each month. I also have invested a lot of time into relationships with various companies that are cool, and kind enough to give me things to give away for these challenges.  Obviously, if we’re not interested in it, I can redirect that energy into putting something together that folks will be interested in, I just don’t want to waste your, nor our time, so I ask, should we continue the monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenges?  

If yes, just revisit the Flickr group threads (TRP Group Thread HERE, and Mirrorlessons Group Thread HERE) and submit an image for this month’s theme.  If we see enough interest, we’ll continue, but if not, I think we’ll have to call it quits.  I’d like to at least get through this run of 6 monthly winners (we’re three in, with three more to go) so as to giveaway the software, camera straps, and who knows what else I will have to our third 6 month champion, but that will be entirely up to you guys and gals.

I’ve loved doing these, seeing and showcasing the wonderful photography from so many readers, friends and cohorts.  I know that the Flickr redesign made it tougher to go about finding things the way we had prior, but if we’re gonna keep doing this, we need to know folks are still interested in us doing so.  

Let us know, and thank you to everyone who has made our nearly year and a half long project so fun, and (up to this point) successful in sharing your photography with the greater TRP and Mirrorlessons community.

Keep on keepin’ on, and happy shooting!

Tyson

 

*Monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge – June 2015 “Friendship” with @mirrorlessons

Faraway Friends by Gonzalo Broto

“Faraway Friends” by Gonzalo Broto (Visit him HERE)

Welcome to our sixteenth monthly challenge theme, as chosen by last month’s winner, Gonzalo Broto.  If you’re just stumbling across these challenges, we (myself and friends Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons) co-host a monthly photography theme challenge where anyone and everyone can submit an image, or images to our group threads over on flickr.

Simply interpret the theme, in this case “friendship” however you would like and as long as the image you submit is your own, it qualifies.  The theme runs through the current month, and at the end of the month, Heather, Mat and I each choose our favorite images and showcase those three along with a public vote on our respective websites, to be seen by all of you fine folks, giving us the ability to choose our overall favorite image.  The votes are tallied both from the polls here and on Mirrorlessons, and we crown the monthly winner after the vote is open for 5 days.

The real fun begins when we take our monthly winners, every 6 months, and showcase all the monthly champions again in a vote for the semi-annual champion, with the winner receiving free photography software, and various photo related hard goods.  We’ve been fortunate to have Alien Skin Software, Topaz Labs Software and Lensbaby all contribute in the past.  Great tools by great companies, by and for photographers.

Find the monthly theme threads in our Flickr Groups:

Tyson Robichaud Photo-blography Flickr Group HERE

Mirrorlessons Flickr Group HERE

It’s all free, and a fun way to provide a little motivation to get out and shoot while possibly connecting with fellow photographers all over the world, fittingly themed this month with ‘friendship’ so that’s pretty cool.

Take the theme, friendship, go forth, and enjoy.

To stay connected, find me via the socials, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram and if you prefer email, please feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Thanks for the read and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Congratulations to Gonzalo Broto, our winner for “Textures” with @Mirrorlessons

Water caprice

Congratulations to Gonzalo Broto (see more from him HERE) for winning our fifteenth monthly challenge for the theme “Textures” during the month of May.  See more from Gonzalo on his Blog HERE.  Stop by, say hi and give him a follow.

Thanks as always to Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons for co-hosting.  We know that the recent flickr redesign has made it a bit trickier to stay abreast of the goings on through the groups there, but thank you to everyone that made the effort and submitted this month.  Hopefully Yahoo will leave flickr alone for a little while and let us get used to where everything is as opposed to continuing the attempted transformation into a boiled down, instagram clone.

Stay tuned for our soon to be announced theme for June, as chosen by Gonzalo, and keep up with all our challenges, reviews, specials and tutorials via the socials, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram and if you’re into the email thing, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Thanks for the read and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Time to vote for our 15th Monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge Theme Winner, Textures!

Congratulations and thank you to Tara Tanaka (visit Tara here) for both winning last month and choosing our theme this month, Textures.  We now have a new set of selections that Heather, Mat and I have chosen for this month’s vote.

Please vote for your favorite both below and over on Mirrorlessons here.  For those new to this, Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons and I co-host a monthly challenge via our Flickr groups where anyone can submit an image based on the current theme.  At the end of the month, Heather, Mat and I each choose an image that we feel best exemplifies the theme and we host those images on our sites (like this vote here) and open a public vote to all our readers and passers by.  The winner gets to choose the next month’s theme, and is entered into our semi-annual champions vote where they go up against the other monthly winners in a vote where that winner walks away with photography gear and software.  Not bad.  Are you on Flickr?  Find us HERE and keep an eye peeled for new themes, the first week of each month.  This month, our choices for “Texture” are:

Color Mess“Color Mess” by suheilunneen


voces

“Voces” by Fernando Pereira


Water caprice

“Water caprice” by Gonzalo Broto

Vote for your favorite image, and please share with friends.  The more the merrier!  It has been wonderful to see these monthly challenges grow, getting to see and be inspired by many awesome photographers around the world.  We started these as a way to collaborate, network and hopefully inspire each other into shooting based on these themes, and while I am not technically submitting, I use the themes as motivation to try and shoot for the month.  It’s fun.

Thanks as always to everyone who submitted, all the voters and of course, Heather and Mat for being awesome.  Make sure to visit Mirrorlessons to both vote there, and say hi.

Stay tuned for our new theme which will be chosen by the winner of this vote after we’ve closed it on the 5th.

You can stay abreast of challenges via the socials, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram and if you’re into the email thing, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Thanks for the read and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Time to vote! Vote for the winner of our fifteenth monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge; “Silhouette.” With @MirrorLessons

Happy May Day!  Anyone else feeling like time is evaporating?  Another month is in the books, and we have had an amazing grouping of submissions for this month’s theme, “Silhouette” as chosen by last month’s winner, Giovanni Tabbò Visit Giovanni HERE.

Please vote for your favorite image below, and make sure to visit Mirrorlessons to vote there too!  The vote will run through the 5th of the month, and at that point, we’ll tally the totals and announce our 15th Flickr Photo Blog Challenge Winner who will get to choose the theme for May, and will be entered into our semi-annual giveaway vote where the 6 monthly winners vie for your votes to see who takes home free gear, software and title of our semi-annual Champion!

Along with Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons, we’ve chosen our three favorites from this month’s submissions, and you can vote below.

"Sandhill Cranes" by Tara Tanaka

“Sandhill Cranes” by Tara Tanaka Visit Tara HERE


"The Night She Walked Away"

“The night she walked away” by Chazzz (three z’s) Visit Chazzz HERE


"Smile" by blackandwhitexe1

“Smile” by blackandwhitexe1 Visit Black and White XE1 HERE


 

Please vote for your favorite, and feel free to share:

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite over at Mirrorlessons HERE as well!

Thanks to all of you who have submitted, and for another wonderful month.  We’ve really enjoyed interacting with so many of you, and love to see the community growing and continuing to inspire all of us to get out and shoot.  Stay tuned for your chance to submit to this month’s theme via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram and to stay posted on new articles, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Thanks for the read and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Time to vote! Vote for the winner of our fourteenth monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge; “Man vs Nature.” With @MirrorLessons

We’re well into our second year of the Monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge, co-hosted by me here, and my good friends Heather and Mat at Mirrorlessons.  We just crowned our second semi-annual winner and showered Giorgio Lumaconi with free stuff.  If you’d like a chance to win some free software, and photography gear, all you need to do is to stay tuned and submit your best image to our monthly theme threads whose themes are chosen by our monthly winners.  This month’s winner will be one of the following three images.  Please vote for your favorite from March’s theme, “Man vs. Nature” below and over at Mirrorlessons as well!

1000 contro 1

“1000 Contro 1” by Giovanni Tabbò


Wipeout

“Wipeout” by Alfredo Aleandri


Steering Wheel with Vines

“steering wheel with vines” by Miguel Tejada-Flores


The vote stays open through the 5th of April, and at that time we’ll tally the votes to declare our winner.  The winner then gets to choose the theme for our April challenge and is entered into our next semi-annual giveaway vote where our 6 monthly winners duke it out.

Thanks to everyone that has submitted and to pommes.fritz123 for choosing this month’s theme.  Thank you to Heather and Mat for the continued collaboration and here’s to getting out and shooting.

Keep submitting, and stay up with new challenges and articles by connecting via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram and to stay posted on new articles, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Happy shooting!

Tyson

*Congratulations to Giorgio Lumaconi, our second, semi-annual Flickr Photo Blog Challenge Champion!

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It came down to a foot race at the end, and Giorgio Lumaconi emerged victorious with his image “bookmark”.  Congratulations to Giorgio and I’ll be in contact to get you your free stuff!

Please visit Giorgio HERE to see more of his work, and to connect, say hi, make friends with, follow… you know.

Thank you so much, to Jimmy and the folks at Alien Skin Software, and Darcy and the team at Topaz Software for generously providing us the ability to give away killer photography software, and to Keri and crew at Lensbaby my friends and hometown lens manufacturing gurus, for the LM10 smartphone, selective focus optic!  All wonderful people and companies, that have always been awesome in their support of me and my blogging adventures.  I chose to contact them while still in my blog infancy because I loved their products.  I choose to continue to buy from, use their wares and shill for them because I know them and how hard they work for and within the greater photographic community, so thank you all.  

Giorgio will also receive a brand new Cascade style wrist strap.  I am working on having these available to purchase very soon and will be an addition to the Garda style wrist straps currently available HERE.

Finally, thank you to Heather and Mat at Mirrorlessons, my partners in crime for these monthly challenges.  We have really enjoyed being able to grow the community through these theme based photo challenges and look forward to continuing to.

If you’re new to the monthly flickr photo blog challenges, visit us on Flickr –

Keep an eye out for our monthly theme threads.  It’s a fun, free way to connect with other photographers worldwide, it can be fun motivation to get out and shoot, and get your photography seen by an ever growing audience. 

Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Instagram . To stay posted on new articles, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Keep on keepin’ on, and happy shooting.

Tyson

*Choose the Champion of our semi-annual Photo blog challenge winners!

champions round 2

Alright, we have successfully crowned 6 more, monthly challenge winners, and the time has come to choose your overall favorite.  The winner gets free software from Alien Skin and Topaz Labs, an LM-10 smartphone, selective focus optic from Lensbaby and a brand new, yet to be released TRP camera wrist strap that I’ve been working on.  Please vote for your favorite, tell friends, and remember to visit Mirrorlessons HERE as well to vote there too!  This vote will run for a week, and we will tally the total amount of votes between this poll and the poll at Mirrorlessons with the overall winner receiving all the free stuff and title of our second, semi annual champion.

Thanks as always to everyone who has, and continues to contribute to these monthly themes.  Thanks to Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons for co-hosting all of these cool challenges with me, and helping promote so many cool photographers through these monthly photographic contests.

These challenges are entirely free to enter, and we’ve created them as a way to both provide motivation to get out and shoot with fun new themes each month, and help showcase much of the awesome photography from all of you guys and gals.  All you need to do is find us on Flickr (TRP HERE and Mirrorlessons HERE) to submit your images to the monthly theme threads.  Because we’ve been able to build up steam with it as time has gone on, we have companies that are excited to sponsor these challenges by offering stuff for our semi-annual giveaways.  

Thank you so much to Alien Skin Software, Topaz Labs Software and Lensbaby for being so awesome.  I’ve had the good fortune of working with these three companies for years doing reviews and beta testing and I strongly stand behind them as companies.  Great folks, great products and while I wish my wrist straps would be a cool enough draw, these challenges are so much better because of their gracious gifting so that we can sweeten the pot.

We have 6 wonderful options from the winners of our 6 previous monthly themes.  View all 6, and choose your favorite in the poll at the end.  In chronological order they are as follows…

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*Monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge #13; “Man vs Nature” with @Mirrorlessons

Rügen 2014

“Rügen 2014” by Pommes.Fritz123 on Flickr, see more from him HERE.

Welcome to our 13th, monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge.  Congratulations to Pommes.Fritz123 for winning our Architecture theme last month.  The theme this month as chosen by Pommes.Fritz is “Man vs. Nature” and it can be interpreted however you see fit.   These challenges are a fun way to spur a bit of spontaneous creativity, or provide the motivation to cull through your library to find that perfect shot.

Rules are simple.  Submit your image, or images to our flickr threads for consideration.  At the end of the month, Heather, Mat and I will choose our three favorite images and will showcase these three on both of our sites with an open vote.  The image to receive the most votes between the two sites will be entered into our next semi-annual giveaway vote and will choose our theme for the next month.

To participate, head on over and submit your images to our flickr group theme threads: TRP Flickr Group HERE and Mirrorlesson’s Flickr Group HERE.

Visit and stay tuned to Mirrorlessons and find me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Instagram . To stay posted on new articles, feel free to add your email address at the top right of the page here.  You’ll get email alerts as new articles are released.

Thanks as always to everyone who has continued to submit to these challenges.  I hope you have had as much fun as we have.  Thanks to Heather and Mat for the continued partnership in co-hosting these challenges.  Great folks who do awesome work on their site.  Stop by and visit them for reviews and articles on all things mirrorless.

Have fun and happy shooting,

Tyson