Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

My New Photography Portfolio: CHRISSP.com

Photography | Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Just yesterday my photography portfolio went online at CHRISSP.com. Some quick information about what is going to happen there:

  • I am going to publish one photograph every Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 00:00 (GMT + 1:00)
  • All pictures which are published there are licensed under the Creative Commons License (by-nc-sa)

Thats the formal part.

The Way I Publish my Photography

I bought my DSLR about 1.8 years ago since than I took quiet a lot photographs. My problem always was that I searched a way to publish them the right way. One possibility would have been my Flickr Account or a SmugMug Account. But Somehow I have a problem with this two services. With Flickr the problem was that I had not found any way to upload photographs scheduled which I definitely need for this Monday / Tuesday / Friday schedule (now I found one way but I still want a extra Portfolio but I am going to upload the pictures also to Flickr (same day / time system as with the Portfolio). With SmugMug the problem is, that it is a little to expensive for me.

In the end I decided to get the Domain CHRISSP.com and publish my Photography Portfolio there with an WordPress installation and a theme — coded and designed by my self — which is specially thought to be a portfolio with just one image per posts and heavy usage of Custom Fields, some PHP to get the EXIF information and the different sizes saved in the Media Library of WordPress.

The scheduled Flickr upload is done over email via LetterMeLater.com which is an email services though which you can send emails at a scheduled date and time to any email address. The photograph as an attachment — one problem: it only lets you attache an attachment less than 2MB in size (that is the reason why the photographs at flickr are a bit less in quality than at my Portfolio).

This is the overview how I do my publishing with my Portfolio. I hope you like my shots and please feel free and comment at flickr / send me an email with any thoughts. If you like to use a photograph without a commercial use you are free to do that but I would like you to send me an email to let me know that, thanks!

All in all go and have a look: CHRISSP.com or Flickr

Lightroom vs. Aperture

Photography | Friday, July 31st, 2009

Not that likely that the post is really a versus post but it is about me switching from Aperture to Lightroom. My reasons and a short overview of my new structure in photography processing.

Over the last year I used Aperture 2 as my main library to organize and edit my photos. Not that long ago, a friend of mine — Windows user — bought his own DSLR — an Canon EOS 1000D — and wanted to get to know a great program to sort and edit his pictures. I suggested him Lightroom 2 and he tested it. Now his library runs with Lightroom and I got to see a bit of the capabilities of Lightroom. Thats most part of the reason I even thought about switching. All the features I saw. All the simpler things.

But I have to tell! Most of which had to be understood the right way. Last year as I tried Aperture vs. Lightroom the simple structure of Aperture — that you do not have to think about the files, they are just stored inside the library — was great. Now I understood why Lightroom does not do that. If you want to sort your pictures on your own. Now I use folders for project based sorting and catalogs for sorting pictures across different projects. And that already is in my view the main difference of the file handling. Second the backing up with Lightroom is much simpler too. Just sync two folders!

But not just the file handling was a reason to switch. One additional were the editing capabilities of Lightroom. The ability to add gradient filters or a mask brush are just awesome and now that I am used to them I can not imagine going back to Aperture which does not have that features. In Aperture I needed to export an image and than process a mask in Photoshop, now I can do most of the editing in Lightroom and just in occasion need to fire up Photoshop to add a watermark or do some fancy editing.

Over all I am very satisfied with Lightroom and can not imagine why I was using Aperture for so long! Even though, Aperture has it’s points! It is a great program and I still think that everyone searching an application to process his shots should download at least this two to test them with about 100 shots and than decide which to choose! If you are on Windows the choice does not depend between Aperture — which is Mac only — and Lightroom but there are still some to be tested — like Capture One or Picasa (which I will not recommend even if you are just a amateur photographer). Make your choice and I wish you all the best that you do not need to switch form one to the other platform with a mass load of pictures — I had to move over 10k pictures over to Lightroom.

My Photography Story

Photography | Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

This post is part three of the series, completing my about page with more than just short paragraphs.

Doing just web-development and a little design stuff for quiet a long time, I discovered a new passion of mine. Photography. It was some years ago and the only cameras our family owned have been a ‘Nikon Coolpix 2200′ and a ‘FinePix 2800Zoom’—we still own that cameras. The first steps were taking pictures at private parties and than discovering some other gear my dad owned.

The gear I’m talking about is a set of lenses and 2 analog SLR bodies which caught my eyes. I was hooked by the simplicity and the abilities which you have with such a camera and wanted to have one my own. I have to admit, that I just tested the cameras without film because I didn’t had films and didn’t wanted to buy some—being a tech guy, I’m not was not willing to wait for the pictures to be sent home after they had been developed—, but the testing and playing with the cameras was enough for me to gather more information about the field. And there was one second thing that raised my interest. Some people around me had just bought their first DSLR showing up everywhere with the new gear to shoot. I went out searched for the best gear I could afford and pretty fast got to know that I would have to invest more than I first thought it would cost me and the thought was forgotten numerous times.

But finally, someday early year 2008 I decided to go for it. The first decision I had to make was, which family I wanted to buy—Nikon, Canon, Sony or Olympus. In the end it came down to a fight between Nikon and Canon cause I thought—and still think, but slowly it’s changing—that these are the big players. One more part of these decision was which gear people around me had chosen and there are way more Canon users than Nikon users. So I decided to go for a Canon that I could trade gear with other people I know.

The family wasn’t the problem but now I had to decide which body of that family I wanted to choose. A friend of mine and photographer told me, that if I can afford it, I should go for the last semi-prof model, which was the EOS 30D, while the EOS 40D already was at the marked, than with the amateur-model, which would have been the EOS 450D. In the end I choose the semi-professional model like my friend advised me and in mid March I bought a ‘Canon EOS 30D’ with the kit lens ‘Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6′. Followed buy a rucksack from LowePro to get the gear everywhere I would need it.

Playing with that camera was, and still is, a lot of fun and I’m glad I bough the one I decided to buy. Over the course I expanded my gear with a prime lens—Canon EF 50mm f/1.8—, a zoom lens—Sigma 55-200mm f/4-5.6 DC—a wireless shutter remote, a external flash—Canon SpeedLight 430 EX II—, a battery grip and a carbon tripod. Which makes it all a heavy gear to cary but also a great gear to shoot with.

Of-course the gear is not the best but I think it’s pretty good for what I need and able to use. I would like to replace some of the lenses with light stronger and maybe stabilized once but there is no need special need for spending a great amount of money on that. I also would love a Fisheye but that has to wait!

Being just happy about the gear is not enough. You have to use it and, much more time consuming, you have to sort and edit the shots you’ve taken. My biggest problem is that I struggle with sorting and editing the photos, especially if I was on vacation and took like 3000 of pictures in 2 weeks and than have to sort all of them. There you have to invest time. I hope that I get this done in a better way in the future. If you’d like to have a look at my pictures, I publish them at flickr.

The next post is about my my design story, even though this story wouldn’t be as happy as the photography story. Stay tuned for part four of the series. If you want let me know your feedback or maybe tell your story.

Filling my About Page with a Series of Post

Blogging, Design, Personal, Photography | Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Since some time, I’m writing on this series of posts, which is supposed to be a little background story of my life. Explaining which are my passions, what I do all day long and why I’m here blogging. The second purpose of this post is to fill my about page with some more information. The up and coming posts will be covering the following topics:

  1. My very first years with a PC (Posted: 2009-03-10)
  2. My Way to Web-Development (Posted: 2009-03-17)
  3. My Photography Story (Posted: 2009-03-24)
  4. My Thoughts on Design (Posted: 2009-03-31)
  5. Thoughts on Project Management (Posted: 2009-04-07)
  6. Why I switched or My Macintosh Workstation (Posted: 2009-04-14)
  7. My Way to Blogging (Posted: 2009-04-21)
  8. The current situation and a look into the future (Posted: 2009-04-28)

One thought popped into my mind while I was writing this series: Why should someone be interested in all this, the story about a young man hitting the internet telling his way to all that?

I thought quiet long about this, coming down to three different aspects. First, I like to read similar stories cause I’m interested in the life of others, they inspire me and I can learn from them about how to life my life, what are their passions, the professions and the backgrounds, why they do what they do like they do it. Second, I wanted to fill my about page with value, doing this with some quick paragraphs was not my thought, I want that someone who wants to know more, can read an article about that special parts. Third — the last — is that I want to write an overview about my story that I can remember and read it some day, cause now I can remember the most parts best even though I don’t want to just write it down for my self.

I hope, the posts are well written, interesting and informative. At the moment my post schedule is one post on Tuesday at 00:00 AM (CET, Germany — Berlin) and one at Friday also at 00:00 AM (CET, Germany — Berlin). I want to stick to that schedule this is why I publish this series Tuesdays for the next couple of weeks and still be posting a different post at Fridays.

Update: This series is over. All posts are published.

New Licensing

Blogging, Design, Photography, Web | Saturday, January 24th, 2009

With the relaunch of this blog I changed my licensing to the Creative Commons 3.0 license. I already have been using the Creative Commons, but till the relaunch of the blog, the use of licensing was not consistent. Every time a work was done I had to decide which license I wanted to use. That created a fairly deep jungle of different licenses used for the same kind of work. In this post I’m trying to describe why I now have different areas of work sorted in categories and why I use different licenses for different kind of work.

What is the Creative Commons

If you already know this, you can go on to the next heading.

The Creative Commons is a license free to use and in my opinion it’s absolutely easy to understand. You just need to leave a link to the creative commons homepage, with a phrase at the end (such as by-nc-sa) which indicates the exact license and the person looking at that page instantly knows what he or she can do with the work and even what is not allowed. This is written down in a great amount of different languages, which means that really everyone can understand what’s allowed and what’s not.

Why I use the Creative Commons

The reason why I use the Creative Commons is that the license is free to use for everyone, not just just that, the Creative Commons is understandable and absolutely easy to use. You leave a link attached at your work with the license and the user will see an easy to understand list of thing he’s allowed to do an what not and under which conditions, which makes it really easy to know what you can do with this work and what not. Which is great because you don’t have to read through pages and pages of licensing.

Differences

The reason I use different licenses is that I think that different content should be used differently. At the moment I’m using a system of 5 different types of content sorted in 3 categories of licensing.

Photography & Web-Design & Design

About one of my passion, the photography, I’m going to post soon but now it’s about the licensing. I struggled a lot with the licensing of photography, cause I want to make it possible that anybody is allowed to publish my pictures but if that person is going to make a great amount of money I really want to get a peace of that sweet cake. But if a blogger would like to use one of my pictures in one of his or her posts why shouldn’t that be possible? Well there is a problem with the bloggers who make money with their blogs. I want that a little blog making a little money – like I’m – should be allowed to use my pictures for his posts. That’s why I use the ‘NonCommercial’ in the photography licensing. Even though I want to specify the word ‘NonCommercial’. In my eyes ‘NonCommercial’ means that you don’t make a living of what you are getting money for. But even that is not clear enough. I think about getting a post written about the clarification of ‘NonCommercial’ usage but for now, if you want to use one of my works with the ‘NonCommercial’, please feel free to contact me and ask if you can use even if you make money. We’ll find a way. With Web-Design and even just Design it’s just the same.

Web-Design should be easy to understand, in my case I think of WordPress themes and PSD templates as well as simple easy one page HTML and CSS layouts. Simply sad every homepage theme I create. Design it self for example is a Wallpaper, a Business-Card as well as a Logo. All this things are free to remix, share and use. If you’d like to use it and just make a decent amount of money with the project, please send me a short email, we can discuss everything!

The licensing for this is simply the – in my eyes – nearly standard Creative Commons License. The Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (by-nc-sa), which allows to use it for non commercial usage, share it and remix it as long as you name me as the author.

Writing

In short the category writing is pretty much every text I publish, weather it’s a post or just a page here at my blog or some other arrangement of words like a e-paper. I wouldn’t stop anyone of quoting me – if he or she wants to do that – but I don’t want to see writing created by me somewhere else with just some paragraphs rearranged. That’s the reason I’ve chosen the Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported (by-nd) for writing. This license allows to share the work but have to name me as the author and you are not allowed to create a derivative work of the writing.

Code

Code in most cases is licensed under the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (by-sa) but I also often use the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (by-nc-sa). The reason for this differentiation is that I think some scripts can be used by everyone – like a CSS framework – but some PHP – such as a database framework – script should only be used for NonCommercial projects if the person using it also gives it away for free. The license which is used, is normally mentioned in the code file.

In Short and what if there is no note?

Under this paragraph you see a list with the licenses described above in a short version, with the rights and the link to the license page. But what happens if I haven’t made a note at the work which license is used? If there is no note with the license named, the license listed in this list is used. That means for example, every text I publish is automatically licensed under the Creative Commons by-nd license. If I used a different license I’ll add that for sure. Just at pictures you’ll never find a text where it says ‘licensed under the Creative Commons by-nc-sa’ cause that breaks the whole picture. For that reason please contact me and I’ll tell you which license I used for the particular picture.

  • Photography & Web-Design & Design
    • URL / Short: by-nc-sa
    • In Words: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
  • Writing
    • URL / Short: by-nd
    • In Words: Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported
  • Code
    • URL / Short: by-sa (sometimes: by-nc-sa)
    • In Words: Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Conclusion

Different licenses is a great thing but like everything, it has some cons. It can be confusing, caused by the use of different licenses, but also is great cause different works should be used in different aspects and for that the different categories of works need different licenses, like in my list above. To prevent confusion I decided to write down which licensing I use for what, for that reason I just have to look at that paper and decide which is right for the work. But that does not mean that I’m going to stick to the licensing given for every and all works. I’ll decide each time, especially if I do client or stock work. The last thing is that I don’t guarantee that this licensing system never changes, that being sad means that this can change!

If you read this and although have such a system or just use one license or have some other thoughts, please leave a comment and let me know your opinion on that licensing things.

Cool Guitar Man

Photography | Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Original posted on Flickr

This picture was taken Friday night.
I think it’s real cool, so have a look:D

Would like to hear your comments on that.