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With the new interface also comes the newest podcast, where I sit down and talk to Matthew Campagna – creator of The Turning Gate, an impressive collection of gallery, plugin and other software that allows you to both present and sell your images online.  If you’ve ever struggled with the Lightroom interface, wished for more functionality like shopping carts, or even just some pretty seamless plugins for post production, Matthew’s site has become the most recognized resource for future-compliant websites that extend and broaden both your identity and brand recognition in photography.  If there ever was a podcast to listen to, this is the one! My own efforts with The Turning Gate on a few sample galleries can be found here: www.jasons-photography.com www.juicebox.net A few users … Terry White http://terrywhitephotography.com Rod Barbee http://barbeephoto.com Tuomas Uusheimo http://www.uusheimo.com/ Aim High Aviation Photography http://www.aimhigh.nl/ Cod Photography http://codphotography.ca/ And, to make sure you stop over and see the full suite of products, plugins, galleries and shopping cart software Matthew has to over at some amazingly affordable prices (think $5 on average per plugin): The Turning Gate Matthew on Twitter

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with photographer and teacher David Julian on the podcast.  It’s been a bit delayed in coming, but without further delay, here’s the latest podcast and show notes where we talk about what it takes to listen to your own internal voice, completing personal projects, and incorporating social media.  Give it a listen, and make sure you check out David’s site and social media links below: David Julian Site David Julian Blog David Julian on Twitter Email David: art AT davidjulian.com [display podcast]

I'm so excited to announce the latest podcast (it's been quiet for a while...) is up and ready for listening. I've brought back my good friend Kerry Garrison to the show, as we got together a few weeks ago here in Delightful Denver for a bite to eat and a spontaneous photo walk.

For those of you that may not have been hearing the rumblings in the photo community for the past several days (going on near a week now) – there is quite an uproar going on about a photographer that is getting sued for $300,000!  That’s right, three hundred thousand dollars!  it’s a litigious society we live in for sure, but this borders on ridiculous…a photographer shot a wedding, shared the images with the clients, and after sharing literally hundreds of them on Facebook and friends/family singing praises – the attorney father decided to sue the photographer.  It’s a crazy scenario, and instead of regaling you with all the details (which you can read and watch here, here,  here, and here), I’m just going to chime in with a brief heads up – this could all have been avoided with a simple contract! It’s no big secret that I have had a DIY Legal kit out for a while and this kit has just that – a contract!  The photographer could have avoided a lot of headaches by using one of these.  Think about it – does $30 for a simple kit make sense to avoid a $300,000 lawsuit?  It does to me!  And the best part is that I’ve also done an update to address a great point that Gary Fong brings up about what constitutes an ”acceptable” photograph.  Short and simple enough of an explanation, but is it in your contract?  It’s in this one!  It’s a very small update, but does add the terms of an acceptable photograph.  If you already have the kit – it’s a simple set of text to add, and I include the full text in the YouTube video below, so make sure you check it out! Are you protected?  Do you have an event contract?  If not, there’s no better time than the present to cover yourself and your assets!  Follow the link here to grab my own DIY Kit or find your own assembly of Legal forms on the interwebs to protect yourself and your assets – if you don’t no one else will!

As summer comes upon us, we are out and about much more often, taking more pictures and videos than ever before. The latest from Think Tank Photo makes sure we have the right gear with us without overloading us with every piece of kit.

When Lightroom 4 hit the virtual bookshelves a couple weeks ago, there was quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere. I've even talked briefly about it solo here on the blog (albeit in Beta format), but now that the hubbub has all died down, it was great to take a step back and really look at the nitty gritty details of the application with the calculating eyes of Laura Shoe!

The latest episode of the Learning Digital Photography podcast is now ready for your listening enjoyment.

The latest and greatest from the podcast laboratory is a discussion with my good friend Kerry Garrison, and we tackle this hot topic of 3rd generation cameras.

The first podcast of 2012 is now ready for your listening pleasure! I had the distinct honor of talking with long time photographer and author Joe Farace!

The idea struck me recently that showing some of the LCD configurations for our EOS and other camera systems might be helpful to many people, with an explanation of what each of these does (since the printed manuals are often lacking).

The latest episode of the Learning Digital Photography Podcast is up and ready for your enjoyment! We welcome back to the show Nicole Young (aka Nicolesy).

Photography in Education – by Miguel Palaviccini First of all, let me say that it’s an honor to be a guest blogger for  Jason  – when he asked me to write a guest blog post, it was a no brainer – I’d do it! Then it sunk in that I’m going to be writing a post that actual people will be reading, as opposed to my usual audience – research scientists. I guess this means I better make it interesting. Well, here goes … I’m not a professional photographer, far from that – I’m a professional student. To be more specific, I’m a PhD student/researcher studying Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. In the most general sense, I focus on enhancing the performance of aerodynamic bodies (airplanes, cars, submarines) by modifying the way that the flow (air or water) moves around the specific body. When I started conducting experiments five years ago, I knew that in order to efficiently control any flow, it was first in my best interest to understand the natural flow around the aerodynamic body of interest. This is when I decided that the lab needed a digital camera. After a couple of months of reading books and internet articles, I started getting the hang of what it took to digitally capture what my eyes were seeing. Below are some images that I have taken since I started my journey into photography over the past three years. Some of them were taken for my own research, while others were taken to benefit the research of my colleagues. This was one of my first successful images that I took with a dSLR. It’s a three second exposure capturing the phenomena of flow separation over an airfoil at a high angle of attack. Using a fog machine I was able to inject micron sized particles into the flow. Then, to illuminate the particles, I created a light sheet passing a laser beam through a spherical and then a cylindrical lens. To me, the beauty of this photo is that it captures a phenomenon we all experience daily – but never get to see.   A colleague of mine asked me if it was possible to take an image of the alignment of six laser beams intersecting at a single location in space. Once aligned, they moved the set-up into a wind tunnel and used it to measure the velocity behind an aircraft landing gear. To capture this image, I used a flashlight during a three second exposure to illuminate the laser sources while keeping the contrast between the lasers and the background. Using a mixture of highly viscous motor oil and fluorescent dye, I highlighted some of the flow features around a submerged sphere. I captured images at 15 second intervals and created a time lapse movie of the event. This image alone shows some of the complications that arise when trying to control a three-dimensional flow. I hope to also use this flow visualization technique to understand flow around the tips of wings (where highly three dimensional effects are prominent) in an effort to make wing-tip designs more efficient. Sometimes my colleagues ask me to take images that will be used in conference presentations. For these, I usually have a little more leeway and can clean the image up in post – something that I cannot do with any image that will be published in a journal paper. In a nutshell, their research objective is to create low cost micro sensors to measure shear stress, something that can’t be directly measured at the time. To show the size of the sensor, I decided to place one sensor next to the tip of a pencil and another one on top of a popular snack around the lab. Using photography in the lab setting has allowed me to get comfortable with a camera. In the last few years my passion for photography has spread from a work-related necessity to a hobby I do in my spare time. Many thanks to Jason for letting me share with you a slightly different perspective on photography. ***** Editor Note:  One thing I always keep saying to mys[...]

When confronted with a new field of study, one is often thrust into the deep end of the pool both figuratively and literally. It's tough to learn to swim quickly.

One of the best parts of blogging is getting a chance to meet other photographers, both far and wide. Through innovations like Skype, webinars, and teleconferencing I've been able to reach out to California, across to the East Coast, and even across the pond to the UK and as far as Sweden

Today is a personal blog post day - nothing really photo related except a short video from a recent photography trip. Instead of the photo beat though, I do have some noteworthy news to share as sort of a PSA for the current state of things with the blog: