Voices of PTG Canada

What Inspires you?

I was moved after reading Within the Frame, to wonder what drives my itch to pick up my camera and click the shutter button. Is it people, events, flower, pets, landscapes or all of the above? For me I think I am most compelled to photograph pets and nature.

Pets are one subject that are readily available to me. It can be quite a challenge when they decide not to be my muse or model of the moment. Cats are interesting creatures and although a challenge to photograph it can be rewarding when you get that one fleeting moment on camera.

Nature has always fascinated me. I love how things grow, tree roots, tulips, roses, vines and leaves. I also love the array of colors that can be presented to you depending on the season. I have spent many a weekend at a family cottage shooting the river, trees, roots, flowers and even snowfall. I find I can get lost for hours just wandering around photographing everything of interest around me. I do say though my favourite season to photograph is Spring. I had the pleasure to wander around my office photographing some of the flowers and in bloom trees.

So what inspires you?

Beyond the World of Film

I am slowly making progress on learning how to use my digital camera. It has been a long time since I owned a camera with features that went beyond point and shoot.

When I was younger I was into photography but the challenge at that time was the cost. Film had its challenges and one was the process of getting to seeing what your photos looked like. I actually did a class on using a darkroom which was a fascinating lesson although I don’t miss the lovely chemical smells. It has been a fun experience again to be able to experiment with photos and instantly see the results so I can adjust the next shot. This makes learning a much more organic process.

Just recently I spent another weekend at my cousin’s cottage, the perfect place to experiment with a digital camera. You get lots of natural lighting which takes the pressure off learning how to use a flash and a variety of scenery like moving water, grass, trees, people and animals.

 I took some time to figure out the preset settings and why you would use them. I was delighted to discover with the sports setting I could take photos out of a moving vehicle. Still need a little work with timing and getting my shots not on a weird angle but a fun trick when you spend as much time as I do being a passenger in a car (I don’t drive it’s a long story). Now I can take pictures marking my travel from point A to B and the interesting things we pass along the way.

The other feature I learned was how to change the camera’s focus between the different points on a grid. This ability appears when I depress the shutter button half way. I very useful feature when you want to change from focusing on something in the foreground to something in the background or off to the side. My father who is naturally talented with a camera gave me an excellent lesson on how to change focus from a close up shot to far away shots. Still haven’t quite got the hang of applying an f stop or shutter speed with change of focus but I hope I will eventually get the hang of that too.

I have a few more books on my list of must reads, both I know will give new insights and inspiration on taking interesting photos in the future:

Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision (9780321605023)
David DuChemin

Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs (9780321636829)
Chris Orwig

The World's all a Twitter

A year or so go Twitter was just a word not a phenomenon talked about on the nightly news, The Ellen Show, newspapers and popular television sitcoms. It took me quite awhile to get the hang of twitter and like everyone else I wondered how interesting you could be with a 140 word limit post.

 

I know there are still lots of people who still have no clue what twitter is or what all the fuss is about. For me I did not get it till I was on Twitter and using it on a regular basis. Twitter is essentially a way of instantly communicating with friends, co-workers, and just about anyone else. Twitter is a powerful tool for expressing thoughts, feelings and messages to those who are following you. I have learned one trick though be choosey about who you follow or else you could be scrolling through a lot of posts and experience information overload. Some people on Twitter are very active and some are not.

 

Twitter for me is an excellent way to receive instant news flashes, tidbits of interesting facts, announcements of upcoming events and people’s random thoughts for the day. Twitter is a place to read and see an instant snapshot of a moment in time from various people and companies from around the world.

 

To learn how you can get started on Twitter, Butterscotch.com (http://twitter.com/butterscotchTV) has some great video tutorials (these are part of a series of tutorials):

 

How to Blog on Twitter

 

Twitter language and other power-user tips

 

Help with Twitter's homepage layout

 

Peachpit Press has a list of the authors using the twitter universe to communicate here, a great list of people to start following for interesting information, tips and tricks.

 

So hopefully soon you too can tweet, post a tweetpic or an interesting link on Twitter!

Shutterbug

This year my family decided as a very special Christmas gift to upgrade me from my point and shoot digital camera to a full SLR camera. Unfortunately my family feels they have unleashed a monster. I have become my families’ personal paparazzi. My mother clearly feels that with my new camera I can not post a single flattering photo of her. Not my fault that every time I point the camera at her she makes faces at me!

But on a more serious note I have discovered that when you own a point and shoot you can get into some habits that don’t translate well on a SLR camera. It has been a challenge to think about a photo in terms of not just posting it online but actually taking a photo that can be printed, cropped and adjusted. I am stoked about the fact I have true telephoto and macro abilities. I can get up close and personal with people, pets and nature without having to stand six inches in front of them. Although as my family pointed out, there is such a thing as too close. As I continue to learn I will enjoy posting my experiences for you. I am now rereading the great digital photography books available to me through our various imprints (my favorites are listed below) and will pass on any tips and tricks I learn. I also hope to take some photography course this spring since the last course I took was when I owned a film camera in elementary school.

 

My Favorite Digital Photography Books

The Digital Photography Book (9780321474049)

The Digital Photography Book Vol 2 (9780321524768)

The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from one of the world’s top shooters (9780321544087)

Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (9780321503541)

The Digital SLR Guide: Beyond Point-and-Shoot Digital Photography (9780321492197)

Soon to be added to my favorite list:

Welcome to Oz: A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop CS4 (9780321585462)

The Hot Shoe Diaries: Creative Applications of Small Flashes (9780321580146)

Within the Frame: A Journey in Photographic Vision (9780321605023)

Do you have any favorite books? feel free to post in the comments section.

Welcome!

Welcome readers, hope everyone had an amazing holiday and a very happy New Year!

I am going start off the New Year with a short blog. I have discovered since starting the PTG Canada blog that writing for a blog is harder than it looks. I have come to appreciate all of you who can write and maintain a blog on a consistent basis. I on the other hand have to say I am a very slow blogger. In 2008 I managed to get a case of writers block. So this year my New Year resolution is to try to personally write two blogs a month, no promises though! I would love to see fellow bloggers post any tips, tricks and topic suggestions in the comment section.

Next post coming soon!

Social Media Revolution

As I watched the historical declaration that Barak Obama was now the new president elect I was fascinated by the statistics that were being floated out on how he did it. It was clearly mentioned several times that Obama had used the power of social media to his full advantage to spread his message of hope and change.

It has become clear Obama’s biggest triumph was capturing the youth vote. It is being said that in the target audience of 18 to 29 Obama captured 66% of the votes to McCain’s 32%. Obama managed to do this by being the first president elect to incorporate every aspect of the web and viral marketing to his advantage. Obama had over 1 million “friends” on My Space, a presence on YouTube and even placed ads inside video games. Obama gave the youths of the US a voice on the mediums they are most comfortable using.

This use of social media by Obama is proof on how powerful of a tool it can be for corporations and non-profit groups. When used correctly and effectively you can leverage social media tools to your advantage. It has become clear that the youths of today are beginning to have a significant effect on spending patterns and trends. Although use of social media tools are growing in other target audiences it is clear for the younger groups it is an integral part of there lives.

Obama’s success is clearly going to usher in an era where social media will no longer be a secondary tool but the primary tool for selling, marketing and public relations.

A Win(dows) this time?

First of all, I suppose I should preface this post with the fact that I am not a beleaguered Mac ex-pat, nor am I a Linux hound that insists that any good OS is an open source OS – I merely use whichever is available to me for any given function that I wish to perform. I have computers at home with Mac OSX, Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows Vista on them and I use each one equally, for the most part. You could call me an equal opportunity OS user with tendencies more to Linux/Mac than PC if I am being honest and should gaming ever get more prominent on a Mac - I may re-evaluate.

Why the preface you ask?

The latest ads from Microsoft – the “I am PC” campaign (sans Seinfeld) is in my opinion right on the mark and really well done. I know all the Mac sites are abuzz with delusions of greatness and mocking uproariously every time anything PC hits the TV screen – but is this a prime example of not seeing the forest for the trees? Or, put another way – are the Mac fans always going to have blinders on when it comes to PC regardless of, a) the quality of the product b) the marketing/advertising that accompanies it.

The commercials are smart, engaging and really focused perfectly on the grassroots “middle-America” demographic, which is exactly who they should target. I’m going make some assumptions about what I do know purely from my own experience in the Mac vs. PC debate. Feel free to chime in and argue or dispute them – or even add your own.

1. The majority of Mac users are either creative/advertising or video industry types – very niche and somewhat specialized.
2. Mac users are generally focused on the “big centers” (statistically - no really - look it up) like LA, New York, Chicago and Toronto.
3. Macs are generally more expensive for both the hardware and software – and that assumes that you can get the Mac software or its equivalent in a timely manner.
4. Mac OS (circa 1984) is Windows XP – in other words – Mac users see the Windows (PC) OS as outdated, simplistic, and not overly “cool”.

So what does all of this mean? I think those four points pretty much sum up the demographic that encompasses the majority of the people in North America. People can relate to them better because our neighbours all use them – they focus on the simple things that bring people together – not the elite that set them apart (read - video editors, creative directors, etc.).

The ads work because looking down on people for what they can't do is elitist and not what PC is all about nor what has made the company from Redmond, Washington a household name over the past few years.

My congratulations to the brand managers at Microsoft for this latest win – round two goes to PC. Rest assured however that Mac will fight back and continue to nibble away at middle-America to convince them they are cool. Is this really a battle Mac can win though?

Social Networking Experiment ... Shake, Rattle and Roll

So yesterday I decided to try something a little different and follow the Apple announcements through Twitter and live blogs. The part that was fun for me was that while I was following the announcements other people were following my posts. As I posted in Twitter it showed up on my Facebook profile. Now this is how to have fun with social networking. Only till now have I figured out the usefulness of Twitter.

The live blog I was following was through MacWorld. Not sure if live would be the word I would use as it had a tendency to be about 10 minutes behind. Not sure what was causing the lag. It was clear a couple of other sites were not experiencing the lag time. It was far more humorous to read the live reactions to the announcements then after the fact as it has been in the past.

Overall there were some very interesting announcements yesterday. I have already had my service desk install iTunes 8. A few of the new features are going to take getting use to. Not so sure I like browsing by album, it seems to struggle with identifying my independent band CD’s. The new “cloud computing” feature Genuis also seems to struggle with the independent bands, it will hopefully gain a greater intelligence as more people use it. So far Genius has not paired Slipknot with Kanye West.

I will also be test driving the new iPod’s when stores receive them and I will especially interested in the new feature that allows you to “shake” the ipod to shuffle your songs. My big decision will be whether to go with an iPod Nano or an iPod Touch. The iPod Touch catches my attention more since it is being marketed as a mini game machine (wonder what Nintendo thinks of that). My decision will be made easier when our books are released and illustrate all the cool new features.

For now I am all a flutter with Twitter and learning to shake, rattle and roll in the new era of social networking.

Venture Tape vs. McGills

An interesting and landmark case was fought and won in a US court recently. (To view the court documents in all of their long and boring legalese jibberish click here) I will however, do my best to summarize it for you. The case involved metatags and search engine optimisation (SEO).

For the geeks you all know that metatags don’t matter one iota any more and haven’t for some time now so this decision might come off as somewhat confusing, but the outcome was still worth noting. The court awarded $426,487 in damages, costs and fees to the plaintiff because the defendant used its copyrighted name in an alleged attempt to steal web traffic and customers.

To summarize the case, the defendant (McGills) sells a competitive product to Venture Tape (plaintiff). In 2000 McGills decided to use the Venture Tape trademark name in its own metatags and as white-on-white body copy in an alleged attempt to steal traffic and customers. Because they (metatags) once might have mattered, courts are still treating this as a successful and effective SEO tool – so therefore the infringement of the rights holder was valid and the plaintiff rewarded accordingly.

The trick to this case is that the only disputed point was that of actual consumer confusion. The defendant pointed out that there was no factual evidence to prove that any consumers were diverted using his technique, however, the court didn’t care about that evidence and suggested that that was only 1 of 8 factors involved, and the other 7 were much more damning.

The court also had no trouble declaring the defendant’s actions as wilful therefore opening the path to a damage award. Based on all information provided to the court the plaintiff was awarded 100% of the defendants profit during the three year period stated in the original court documents. In short, the defendant’s business ran at 0% profit for three years based solely on “competitive metatagging” – even if the metatagging didn’t divert a single customer.

Clearly the court and the defendant didn’t understand metatagging – but nevertheless, it certainly screams to me that it just isn’t worth using a third party trademark in your metatags regardless of the intention. The courts still aren’t sure how to handle cases like this and as such tend to overreact, especially when SEO and metatagging is involved. Is it really worth the aggravation when you consider the actual marketing benefits in the long run?

Path to The Future

To discuss the future of computers it is always fun to take a look at the past. As it happened the other day I got my hands on an old Apple IIe manual. A computer introduced in January of 1983 with a 1.023 Mhz microprocessor and 64 kb of memory expandable to 1 mb. According to the manual this computer was being used by wineries, corporations, secretaries (today office assistants), and families. For some strange reason this three-piece computer is shown being used on a bed (hopefully an extra firm mattress) and on a boat (perched on a rail seat!). Apparently this is appropriate for a computer that has lots of wires, an external 5.25 inch disk drive, needs a plug and comes with a warning do not get wet! Apple(r) shows this quirky sense of humour throughout the manual:

Control Characters (chapter 2)
To the Apple IIe a control character is non-printing character that causes something to happen. ³

Stopping a program (chapter 4)
Press the ESC key. This key is in the upper left hand corner. Its full name is escape and if your lucky, that's what it'll help you do. ²

Help (chapter 8)
Question: Can't turn Computer on (power light not on; no beep)
Answer: Check power cord connection all the way from the computer back panel to the wall outlet. Does a switch control the wall outlet? Is a fuse blown?³

After browsing a manual from 1983 I can clearly see how far we have come. It now makes me feel a little ancient knowing when I was a child a computer weighed more than me. A manual was written for those who had never used anything but a typewriter. We had lessons on scrolling, proper use of a 5.25 inch disk, access to a spell checker called Goodspell(tm), a telephone modem and the option of adding a joystick (or as Apple(r) calls it, hand controls).

Computers of today have come a long way and there future path is still a little mysterious. The introduction of smaller parts, wireless capabilities, better batteries, cloud computing, and greater portability have made computers everything that Apple(r) originally dreamed of in 1983. To my generation computers are like the evolution of cars and I wonder what computers will be like 25 years from now.

Footnotes

1. Apple Computer:"Apple IIe Owner's Manual", page 38. Apple Computer, 1983.
2. Apple Computer: "Apple IIe Owner's Manual", page 63. Apple Computer, 1983.
3. Apple Computer: "Apple IIe Owner's Manual", page 105. Apple Computer, 1983.