Photo.net Newsletter: April 2, 2009

Hi %%First Name%%,

Howdy, what’s new in your neck o’ the woods? Nothing but baby drool and teething here in the Root household. Life is good, so I really shouldn’t complain (though sometimes I still do). Spring is slowly arriving, I’m starting on a new photo project, we’re making headway on a lot of Photo.net challenges and features that need to be worked on, and my baby is a pretty fun guy to hang out with.

What do we have for you in this month’s “community” newsletter? There is a new “Welcome to Filmtown” article featuring the panoramic Horizon 202 and Kodak’s new Ektar 100 film. Our guide to “Staying Updated with Photo.net” will show you all the fancy web 2.0 gadgets that you can use to find out what is new with photo.net. Finally, we added the ability for you to add photo tags to a whole folder of images as once, which we hope will encourage more people to tag their images. For those who are not quite sure what these “tags” are, I have put together a tutorial on how to use Photo.net’s tagging system. And of course we’ve got the Monthly Project, Featured Member, Jodi Cobb LOVE Project, Photo of the Week and the rest of the “community” newsletter regulars.

As a final note, I encourage everyone to check out last month’s Monthly Project: March: Repetition. “Repetition” got a ton of good submissions. In my opinion, I think it was one of the best monthly projects so far. As per usual, I included three of the images that caught my eye in the newsletter, but there were many others I could have included as well. Also, click here for the Monthly Project Index Page if you are not familiar with the series.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to us directly at contact@photo.net. Enjoy the newsletter!

Sincerely,

Josh Root

Photo.net Director of Community

New Photo.net Site Features

Ability to tag multiple images at once now available

There is now a way to tag multiple images in a folder at the same time. For example, say that you had a folder called “raptors” that held photos of eagles, hawks, etc. You might want to tag every image in that folder with the words “raptor” and “bird”. With the new multi-tagging feature, that is easy to do. Full instructions are right here:

http://photo.net/help/gallery/photo-tagging/multi-tagging

I need to point out once again: This system is currently a BETA release. That means we’re still working on it. If you find any bugs, please report them in the Site Help forum so they can be fixed. Things may change from time to time as we add features and fine tune the system.

Photo Tagging Tutorial

Not sure what this “tagging” conversation is all about? Well, we’re here to help! There is now a tutorial on the photo tagging system for those who do not understand how or why to use it. Please let me know if anything is not clear:

Photo.net Photo Tagging Tutorial

Stay Updated on all the Photo.net News

Now that we’ve got the blog and the social networking group and RSS feeds and all that crazy stuff, I figured it would be a good idea to write a little article that explains what it all is and what you can do with it. If Twitter, blogs, Facebook, RSS, and so on are all gibberish to you, take a look at this article and you should come away with some new information.

Using this stuff is a great way to make sure that you don’t miss anything that happens on Photo.net:

http://photo.net/help/staying-updated-whats-new

New Article

Welcome to Filmtown: Horizon 202 & Kodak Ektar 100

I’ve just finished the third article in the “Welcome to Filmtown” series on interesting films and cameras. This month, I check out the swing-lens panoramic Horizon 202 and Kodak’s Ektar 100 color negative film. I’m getting better with these, the March article was published only 2 days into April!

Read the Filmtown: Horizon 202 & Kodak Ektar 100.

Here are some users who have recently won cool stuff from Photo.net

Harold Davis Flower Project

In January, Photo.net featured an interview with Harold Davis. Harold discussed his methods of finding inspiration and creativity when photographing a specific assignment or a non-specific assignment. At the end of the interview, he offered a creative project as a contest for Photo.net members. First place won a $50 Adorama gift card and a copy of Harold’s book Light & Exposure. Two runners-up won a copy of Harold’s book.

• Winner: Martha Weintraub’s “Flower Dancer” (left)
• 1st Runner Up: Christa Binder’s “Untitled” (center)
• 2nd Runner Up: S.J. Luke’s “Coming Up for Air” (right)

Welcome to Filmtown Comments: Holga/Kodak BW400CN & Leica IIIf/Fuji Provia 100f

As part of the “Welcome to Filmtown” article series, I like photo.net users to post comments or images at the end of the article talking about their opinions or experiences with the camera or film at hand. To encourage them to post, we have a little contest with every article and give away a small prize (usually a few rolls of the film) to two users. Here are the winners for the first two articles. Yes yes, I’m a little behind. As always.

Mike K. made a great post about using a Holga to create interesting “in camera” diptychs.

Eric Constantineau posted some great images, some using BW400CN, and talked about using his Holga.

Tom Fowler posted a beautiful image made with Fuji Provia 100F.

Rob F. talked about using his father’s IIIf and his own IIIc cameras, gave a few tips on trimming film, and mentioned his affinity for both Provia 100F and Velvia.

Photo.net blog PMA coverage “comment” contest

We had a big pile of cool prizes to give away to people who followed our PMA ‘09 coverage on the Photo.net blog and left a comment on one (or more) of the PMA posts. The winners were announced on the blog itself—check to see if your name is on it. Of course, if you didn’t leave a comment on any of the PMA posts, your name wouldn’t be on there. Why didn’t you leave a comment? You could have won a cool prize!

Winners listed here.

Featured Member Photographer: Justin Serpico

In addition to being one of the moderators on the Photo.net Pentax forum, helping out many other users with useful photography advice, and being a Photo.net contributing writer, Justin Serpico somehow finds time to head out into the wilderness and come back with a pile of great photos.

Self-taught as a photographer and lover of the outdoors, Justin has been able to combine his two passions into a style of photography that encourages the viewer to “get out and play” as much as it does to encourage them to “get out and shoot.” His images come from knowing and loving the places and activities that he is shooting, and that is always a great place for a photographer to start creating.

When I applied for my first photography job, the editor asked me how long I’ve been a photographer, and I told her, ‘I’m not really a photographer, photography just sort of comes along with me on my adventures.’ I still largely feel this way, if I never picked up a camera again, I’d still love the scenes I shoot. -Justin Serpico

Read More »

Samples from the member’s portfolio:

View Justin’s entire portfolio »

Jodi Cobb LOVE Project

Last month at PMA, Photo.net interviewed Jodi Cobb, National Geographic photographer. She offered a documentary project for Photo.net members to participate in, and win one of her books. Details are below.

Think about how you can illustrate some aspect of love, marriage in your hometown, some sort of truths about human behavior, high school, first love, courtship. Take the idea and turn it into a narrative while expanding on the concept. It doesn’t necessarily have to have a happy or positive note. Do an edited 10-photo series telling a story of some aspect of love. For more insight, read Jodi Cobb’s field notes on Love and view some sample images from Jodi’s Love project.

Upload your series to your photo.net gallery in a folder titled “Jodi Cobb “LOVE” Project” and add your best (1) single photo of the series to the comments section of Jodi’s interview with photo.net (photo should be no wider than 700px width) with a link to your 10-photo series. The series must be in your photo.net gallery for consideration.

Due date: May 15. These will be compiled into an article. Jodi and the Photo.net Editorial staff will select the top LOVE photo series from this project for special recognition and a copy of Jodi’s book Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art. The top series will be announced end of May 2009.

Visit the comments section of Jodi’s interview on Photo.net to enter your series.

Special Deals from Adorama

The Adorama Flashpoint Battery Grip BG-E5 for the EOS Rebel XSi holds up to two LP-E5 battery packs or six AA Batteries to offer double-length shooting time. The vertical shutter release makes shooting with the camera in a vertical position just as comfortable as shooting horizontally. Compare to list price of $299.70 for a Canon-brand battery grip.

The following functions are available in the vertical shooting position.

• Shutter-Release
• Main Dial
• AF Point Selection
• AF/FE Lock, Index
• Aperture
• Exposure Compensation Button
• Reduce Button

Adorama makes an entire line of Flashpoint “3rd party” accessories. Rather than purchasing from a sketchy ebay seller or unknown website, Adorama offers quality accessories from a vendor who you can trust.

Buy now from Adorama: Flashpoint Professional Battery Grip for the EOS Rebel XSi & Canon 450d/1000 Cameras [sale price: $69.95 + free shipping]

Other deals from Adorama:

• SanDisk 2GB 5 Pack Extreme III SD Cards [sale price: $49.95 + free shipping for 5 cards, regular price $74.95]
• SanDisk 2GB 5 Pack Extreme III CF Cards [sale price: $49.95 + free shipping for 5 cards, regular price $74.95]

Find great deals on thousands of other products at the Photo.net Adorama Store.

What’s Happening In Our Forums

• Philosophy of Photography (67 Responses) Contemporary photography. Contemporary claptrap?
• Nikon (52 Responses) First DSLR: D200 or D90?
• Digital Darkroom (326 Responses) Mac vs. PC....I NEED to be convinced. :)
• Classic Manual Cameras (82 Responses) Camera books someone might like

Go to Photo.net Forums »

Project Of The Month: Panoramic

I’ve been in a wide state of mind since I had the Horizon 202 in my camera bag for the past few months while writing the Filmtown article about it. This month, let’s celebrate the long skinny image, the panoramic.

A panoramic image is one that is significantly longer in one dimension than another. To say it another way, a panoramic image is a long rectangle. While there is no set definition for what aspect ratio defines an image as panoramic or not, I would wager a guess that for many people an image needs to be at least twice as long on one side vs the other (an aspect ratio of 2:1) before they would call it “panoramic”.

This month, I want to see a whole pile of long rectangles. You can shoot with a panoramic camera, crop from a larger image, or even stitch images together in Photoshop. All I care about is that it be panoramic.

See all of the Monthly Projects (and submission instructions) on the Monthly Project Index page. Also, be sure to take a look at last month’s Repetition project page and see all the wonderful images that were uploaded. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Editors’ Picks

We have a new Editors’ Picks for your enjoyment: Spring Photography.

Samples:

Also, take a look at some of the most popular Editors’ Picks from previous months:

• Macro Photography
• Mother’s Day Photos
• Wedding Detail Photos