New Feature from Picasaweb

Google added a new and very useful feature to Picasaweb. You can now create Flash slideshow on Picasaweb and include them in your blog or webpage.
5 different sizes of the slideshow are offered:
144 px, 288 px, 400px, 600px, 800px

Here is a 400 px of one of my portraitsessions:



For more info check Google's blog:
Official Google Blog: Oh, the places you'll go....

Just a snapshot from the airport

We brought my brother in law to the airport this week and I was able to do this quick snapshot as the sun just set. The airport is the international airport of Cape Town. One of the smaller international airports in the world.

Focus

Recently I took some portraits of a couple in my family. We started the session with some standard shots, interesting, not too bad. The sun was setting, and I took the pictures against the light.
After we actually finished taking the pictures, the two became more playful and I just continued taking pictures. The result? A lot of images, quiet a few of them totally blurred as I worked with a slow shutter speed and no flash. Even though they are not 100% perfect in the sense of composition and focus, I prefer them to the standard shots. Have a look here:



Nice atmosphere and all, but this one is my favourite:

I enjoy the fun and interaction of the two most in this image.

Apple Aperture

In my digital workflow, I use Apple's Aperture to import and organize my raw images. Working with Aperture is mostly intuitive and uncomplicated. Aperture allows me to create folder structures for my images in any possible way, which makes working so convenient for me.

Beside the powerful organization of my images, Aperture offers image correction as well. Most of the adjustments that I need to perform, I do right in the application. All adjustments are non invasive, meaning the original file is not touched. At any time it is possible to go back to the original file without loss of any information. These days, it is only on the rare occasion that an image needs some more in depth manipulation that I turn to Photoshop.

Adobe released it's own version with name Lightroom recently. I haven't worked with Lightroom yet myself, but it appears to be comparable and some users give it better ratings than Aperture.

You can find out more about Aperture at the folllowing links:

Apple
Inside Aperture

Let me know, about your experiences with any of the applications. Maybe you have some other interesting links, I can add.

Iron John Weekend

My friends from our Iron John group and myself went for the long weekend away to Sedgefield.
Some pictures from this trip are here:
Right click the image and select open in new tab or window:

Iron John Sedgefield April 2007