Tag Archives: monthly

*Monthly Nauti Straps Donation Program – April 2017 – White Helmets

by in Nauti Straps - handbuilt camera straps, Nauti Straps Monthly Donations, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I cannot think of a situation more dire than that which is taking place in Syria and affecting Syrian people right now.  I’d imagine we’ve all read about, and seen the horrific footage of the most recent spate of chemical attacks and while extremely hard to watch, if you haven’t, I think it important to do so to understand just what the evil in this world is capable of.  The Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets are a group of Syrian rescue workers who risk life and limb to respond to bombings, chemical attacks and any other act of violence against innocent children, women and men, and do so outside of any political or religious framework.  Pure humanitarian motivation.  I would suggest seeing who they are, and what they do here: www.whitehelmets.org

As of the time of this writing (according to their website), 166 White Helmet volunteers have been killed, and yet they continue to charge into affected areas to help the people, the families, the children who are otherwise helpless.  

Politics aside, and regardless of who is responsible for the continued aggression against Syrian civilians, we can at the very least, financially help.  We will be donating 10% of all sales of Nauti Straps (find Nauti Straps HERE) to the White Helmets this month, and even if you’re not in the market for a camera strap, even a few dollars can help if you feel so inclined to donate directly.  I’ve tried to find worthy causes to support each and every month, and right now, I cannot think of any cause in more immediate need.  We may not be able to do much in the grand scheme of things, but this is one way that we’ve decided to try and use our new business to help a little bit.

We will be getting back to our regularly scheduled programing shortly as I have multiple lens reviews and comparison articles in the works.

Thanks all, be well and happy shooting.

Tyson

 

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

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

bookmark

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!

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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…

Continue reading →

*Congratulations to Pommes.Fritz123 for winning our February Flickr Photo Blog Challenge, Architecture! with @Mirrorlessons

by in Photo Blog Challenge, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kuppel10_24_7

“Kuppel10_24_7” by Pommes.Fritz123 (see more from Pomme.Fritz123 HERE)

 

With his sweeping lines, Pommes.Fritz123 has won our twelfth monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge, “Architecture.”  Congratulations P.F123!  You’ve now been entered into our semi-annual giveaway post which will happen within the next couple weeks to vie for our reader’s overall favorite image from the last 6 months, and a free plugin from Alien Skin, another plugin of your choice from Topaz, a Lensbaby LM-10 smart phone camera lens and a brand new, yet to be released TRP wrist strap for your camera!

This was yet another awesome month with remarkable images.  I feel like we’re all seeing a collective stepping up of our respective games, and I hope that for all who choose to participate, you’re also seeing these as a fun way to spur creativity.  For all of those who submitted, thank you again.  To everyone who has, who may and will continue to submit, keep your eyes peeled for this month’s theme.  Each month is a new opportunity to motivate and connect with a larger community.  We start a new 6 month cycle with March’s theme.

These monthly themes, co-hosted by myself along with Heather and Mat from Mirrorlessons.com were started as a fun way to collaborate and grow our community.  It has given us a way to share much of your photography with a larger audience while connecting with many more photographers, and hopefully aid in providing some motivation for all of us to get out and shoot.  Not that everyone needs it, but I find that being given new direction can help keep my shooting fresh.

Stay tuned for our new theme this month, and keep watch for our semi-annual giveaway vote in a week or so to help us decide who gets all that cool free stuff.  Visit Mirrorlessons.com to stay abreast of all things mirrorless 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 for the read and happy shooting,

Tyson

*Monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge #12; “Architecture” with @Mirrorlessons

by in Photo Blog Challenge and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fred and Ginger, Prague

Welcome to our 12th monthly Flickr Photo Blog Challenge.  This month’s theme marks our one year anniversary and the end of our second semi-annual chunk of winners with this month’s theme providing our winner the last spot in our semi-annual giveaway.  It’s easy.  All you have to do is submit your image to our themed Flickr threads and at the end of the month, Heather, Mat and I will choose our three favorites from the submissions which will then be showcased on the site here, and on Mat and Heather’s site, Mirrorlessons.  The vote runs for 5 days at which point, the winner tallying the most total votes between the two polls will get to choose next month’s theme, and will join our 5 previous monthly winners in our champion’s vote where the winner will receive gifts aplenty.  Last time, our winner Billyburg received a custom built handstrap and a Topaz plugin of his choice.  This time around should offer even more.

The rules are simple.

Submit an image taken by you, based on your interpretation of our theme, in this case “architecture” into our flickr theme threads:

TRP Flickr Group Thread HERE

Mirrorlessons Flickr Group Thread HERE

That’s that.

Submit away, good luck and happy shooting.

t