Ever since it was launched over a year ago, I have been a huge proponent to the Mac App Store because of the one click payment style for downloading apps. It’s very exciting to see that Adobe has made their outstandingly robust application for managing, developing and presenting photographs available on the Mac App Store for just $149! Those of you who are familiar with me and my blog will know that I am pretty well a Lightroom preacher, and I believe that their is just no other application available today that can do everything that Lightroom does so quickly and simply. Go pick up yours today, and then if you need some education on how to use the program, theirs plenty of videos and articles on my blog, but Seth Resnick at d65.com is one of the top Lightroom instructors today and his book, The Lightroom 4 Workbook will be shipping soon! Go check it out!
Looking back on the past couple months for me, I must say they have been relatively uneventful. One of the major highlights was being able to photograph Canadian Fashion Week in March, and in my own classic form, I ended up shooting more backstage photos than any other photographer there. You don’t need to look far in my work to see that I have an obsession with photographing the story behind the show, I remember back in 2009 when I shot the Much Music Video Awards, nearly 90% of my work was photographing the production of the show, from the roadies, grips and camera operators perspective. That aspect of the story to me at least is much more important than the show itself, because where would the Much Music Video Awards be without all of those hard working men and women?
So it was the last day of Fashion Week and I decided I was going to tackle a perspective that nobody had seen from this event, I left the hotspots, and went out back where there was a big glass window revealing the preparations room. Hundreds of models, celebrities and tv personalities prepared to walk the runway that night, and I was the only photographer there! It didn’t take me long to fill up my cards, but the photos that you see here today were my two favorite, both of TV personality Jeane Beker preparing for her appearance later that night. I’ve said it before here and I’ll say it again, theirs more to photography than the main event. Learn to uncover some of the hidden photographs around you and you’ll discover things you’d have never disovered before.
I am so excited to be writing this today! I was so ecstatic to open me email this morning and find a message from Adobe telling me that Lightroom 4 was on the shelves! Finally! I’ve been working with the Beta for the past couple months and have just been utterly amazed with the improvements. Be it to the develop module, the addition of a maps and book module, and of course, the hundreds of little subtle changes that make a HUGE difference! I’ve used Lightroom since the begining, I am literally in love with it! I teach it in my webinars (we’ll be hosting some webinars very soon on Lightroom 4) and theirs ton’s of information on this site on how to get the most from this amazing application!
I’ll have some video’s up near the end of the week to show you some of the features that I’m just loving! In the mean-time, you should definitely go pre-order Seth Resnick’s Lightroom 4 Book! Trust me, I’ve read the previous editions and he is the ultimate Lightroom teacher!
I was first introduced to Sunseeker when my mentor Moose Peterson went raving about it over at KelbyTraining.com and ever since, I’ve been hooked on this amazing little tool! Sunseeker is a $5.00 app for the iPhone and iPad that just rocks! Sure it gives you the sunrise and sunset times, but that’s not all! Sunseeker is designed as an Augmented Reality program. “What is augmented reality?” you ask. Augmented Reality is this technology where you can point your iphone’s camera at something, and see a whole boat-load of information show up on the screen about what your looking at. With Sunseeker, the information you see is a map of where the sun is now, and where the sun will be at certain times throughout the day! Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve needed to plan to get a certain photograph and you just have to know when the light will be shining where you need it? I’m sure you have! Sunseeker brings photographers the information they need to plan these things out!
So what if augmented reality isn’t your thing?
Personally, I prefer to see this sort of information on a map, and the great folks that designed Sunseeker have taken this into consideration for people like me! Sunseeker comes packed with a map feature which allows you to see where the sun will be at increments throughout the day relative to your location (or wherever you decide to look at)!
The Bottom Line
Sunseeker is a powerful app that any photographer should have loaded on their iPhone! It’s clean and simple UI, and it’s powerful functionality make it one of my favorite apps (of thousands I’ve tried). Don’t second guess it, go get Sunseeker today!
It’s kinda rare when you find those wicked cool places purely by chance. This weekend, we didn’t expect to be in Ottawa, nor did we expect to be in Montebello, Quebec’s amazing Parc Omega, but you know, plans change! Well on a search for wildlife shooting opportunities, we headed north to see if the Ottawa Valley would provide the juice we needed! When discussing our needs with some relatives living in Ottawa, we were introduced to this amazing place where Elk, Arctic Wolves, Bison, Black Bear, Caribou, Red Dear and more critters rome without boundary! As you can see from the images, this sort of wildlife photography doesn’t typically come shot from a car 45 minutes from the capital, but Le Parc Omega is incredibly different! The best way to describe Le Parc Omega is how the owner’s describe it: A Natural World Oasis. A place for city dwellers to get close to wildlife without the Some might call it a shooting pen, a photographer’s haven! They’d be right! No matter where you turn their are shooting opportunities! The wildlife comes right up to your car! You think I’m kidding? (See Below)
At Le Parc Omega, It's as if the wildlife is right in the car with you!
Le Parc Omega is actually privately owned by a team of people who’s goal is to make wildlife and natural exploration accesible to those who don’t live in Yellowstone National Park! What they’ve done is a blessing to all of us out here on the east coast who really don’t get to enjoy the beautiful big game of the west. If you get an opportunity to visit Le Parc Omega I strongly advise that you take it! It’s a great gem of a place that you should definitely check out next time your in my neck of the woods!
