You can read a fascinating article by Michael Grecco here:

Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait by Michael Grecco

I’ve bought his book, but I haven’t had chance to read it yet.

This guy breaks all the rules, he does crazy things you aren’t supposed to do with light, he doesn’t produce well exposed sharp images. He produces edgy art, images that show the essence of the person.

He also teaches you how to deal with people, great portraits are not taken – they are GIVEN.

You can find his site here:

Michael Grecco

He was about 10 years old then I guess, now check this out from more recently:

This is one camera money can’t buy.

In just 45 minutes he absorbs enough information to draw a 10 feet long panoramic view of Rome.

Simply amazing.

Donwon Systems, Korean distributor of Pentax, presented ‘ASAHI PENTAX LX Gold’, world’s first water-proof and dust-resistant SLR camera which was specifically made to celebrate 60th anniversary of the company. The ASAHI PENTAX LX Gold was displayed together with ‘K10D’, Pentax’s newly launched 10-megapixels premium DSLR camera ‘K10D’ at a press event in Korea market.In 1980, shortly after Nikon introduced the third generation of the Nikon F3-series system camera, Asahi Optical Co. Ltd. Japan introduced a professional class system camera on their own; the Pentax LX .The year also coincided with 60th anniversary of the most respectful trade name and camera manufacturing business in the business-Pentax.

The Pentax LX gold was launched on August 25th, 1981 to celebrate the production of ten-millionth Pentax SLR camera. It was 18 carat gold plated with brown leather (also-called lizard skin or snake skin) and was equipped with an SMC Pentax f/1.2 50mm lens also with brown leather and gold finish.

The Pentax LX Gold package included a wooden box with red lining and white silk gloves to handle the camera without leaving fingerprints on the sensitive gold plating. Both the camera and the case were provided with golden carton boxes sporting 10million logo and 1981 lettering. Only 300 pieces of the LX Gold were manufactured, 200pcs for the Japanese home market and 100pcs for the international market. Serial numbers for the LX Gold ranged from XM001 to XM300 (XM meaning ten million).

It always includes the perspective shot too, so you can see how it was taken.

Urban Camping

Small Gods

Most were shot with a compact cam, so once again it shows it’s the photographer and the ideas not the gear that makes the picture.

http://little-people.blogspot.com/

I’ve been taking pictures for close to 30 years, starting when I was 18. It started with my Photo 101 course in school, right before I got drafted in the Army. I had studied fine art, but the camera was more immediate, and I knew immediately that’s what I wanted to do.

Right after school, I got the draft notice. I was a hippie, so I was really ashamed of wearing the uniform. I was planning to go to Canada, but this was towards the end of the war. So instead of leaving I decided to give an extra year to the Army so I could be a photographer instead of wasting my time in the infantry.

In that time I learned how to print black and white, and got to use equipment that I couldn’t afford. One of the things those guys used to say was “f/8 and be there.” Because they never used a light meter and, as far as I could tell, they didn’t care about quality. But I liked the concept of not depending on the technology so much and using your instincts.

From: Nick’s Take On..How did you get started?

He is one of the pioneers of ‘Camera traps‘ and has stunning pictures of wildlife around the world.

If you want some interesting stuff I recommend checking out Nick’s Take On..Recommended Reading and his complete list of articles is here.

His gear used is here, he uses Canon, Nikon and Leica.

Now you can use pixer.us, an online image editing tool, it has quite a number of features.

http://pixer.us/

Need a quick fix for that photo? With pixer.us you can edit your photos online using only your browser.!

You just have to upload your photo using the “load image” form. In a few seconds, the image will be displayed on screen and you can start to play with it.

After you’re done fixing your photo click on the “Save” button to download it using your preferred file format.

All modifications are done in a non-destructive way. Your image will always keep it’s original quality!

You can resize, crop, flip, rotate and play with settings for brightness/contrast, saturation, blur/sharpness and some other special effects.

May as well get rid out the old, ugly and outdated Yahoo! Photos.

Yahoo has finally made a decision regarding Yahoo! Photos vs. Flickr battle, and will be shutting down Yahoo! Photos by the fall of this year. Even though Yahoo! Photos currently maintains a higher share of Internet visits, Flickr growth convinced the company to maintain a single photo site from now on.

Says USA Today: ‘Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Flickr in 2004 with wife Caterina Fake, says the move is a “validation” of the central idea of Flickr: that photos in the digital age are very different from a physical print. “We saw it as a means of communication and connecting with people,” says Butterfield, Flickr’s general manager. “People can take a picture and get immediate feedback from all over the world, and you can’t do that with a printed photo.

Source: USA Today

You can find the artists site here (Nico Di Mattia):

http://www.speed-painting.com/

And grab the wallpaper version of John Locke here.

The identity of the photographer IN the photos is unknown.

I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock IN the Grand Canyon.

The canyon’s depth is 900 meters here. The rock on the right is next to the canyon and safe.

Watching this guy in his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod, I asked myself 3 questions:

1. How did he climb that rock?
2. Why not take that sunset picture on that rock to the right, which is perfectly safe?
3. How will he get back?

This is the point of no return.

After the sun set behind the canyon’s horizon he packed his things (having only one hand available) and prepared himself for the jump. This took about 2 minutes.

At that point he had the full attention of the crowd.

After that, he jumped on his thong sandals. The canyon’s depth is 900 meters here.

Now you can see that the adjacent rock is higher so he tried to land lower, which is quite steep, and tried to use his one hand to grab the rock.

We’ve come to the end of this little story. Look carefully at the photographer.

He has a camera, a tripod and also a plastic bag, all on his shoulder or in his left hand.

Only his right hand is available to grab the rock and the weight of his stuff is a problem.

He lands low on his flip flops, both his right hand and right foot slip away…
At that moment I take this shot.

He pushes his body against the rock.

He waits for a few seconds, throws his stuff on the rock, climbs and walks away.

This folks, is TRUE dedication, or just plain insanity..

*P.S. This is actually staged, you too can do it if you dare*

It officially launched a little while ago, so do join up and contribute.

http://www.shutterasia.com

There is a lot of information on the Internet regarding photography and especially equipment and technical terms (Aperture, Shutter, White Balance etc) but it can be very daunting for a new user or even confusing for an intermediate user. We wanted to get away from the bad attitudes, gear talk, cliques and flaming of other sites and communities and create a relaxed, but knowledgeable user base that will eventually fill our forum wonderful information and images.

We also have a Flickr group you can join here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/shutterasia/

And an active Shoutbox for real-time chat:

http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/shoutbox.php (Members only)

If you have any feedback, let us know. Do introduce yourself and start posting pictures!

Feel free to invite your friends, colleagues, relatives and anyone else who might be interested.

Cheers!