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!

You still holding onto the darkroom for your life? You NEED to see this!

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.

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I am always so excited to announce a new upgrade to Photoshop (or any program for that matter!) and I am incredibly excited to announce that the long-awaited Photoshop CS6 has come to the masses in what is referred to as “Public Beta”. You probably know of this term from Lightroom, which has been using Public Beta since version 3 as a way to get valuable consumer input on the produce and it’s features. All that you need to know is that Public Beta means you get to use the program for free with no limitations until the produce hits store shelves! Honestly, whether your contributing your feedback to the manufacturer or not, who doesn’t want free stuff?

So what’s new with CS6? This is a question that a lot of people are asking! I’ll hopefully have a video up later this week that highlights the hottest new features, but for now, I’ll give you the quicky!

1) Dark Interface: gone are the day’s of that bright white U.I., I mean it was just sooooo Windows XP!

2) Video Editing: you now have a fully functional non-linear video editing system built right into your copy of PS! Abeit, it isn’t as powerful as Final Cut Pro X, Premiere Pro or Avid Media Composer, but it does the job for simple stuff!

3) Auto & Background Saves: I guess Adobe finally watched The OSX Lion launch from July and figured, hey, we better catch on with this auto-save thing! It’s a feature we have all beat our heads against the wall for because frankly, theirs no reason that in 2012 we should still have to save our work. Once again, soooooo Windows XP!

4) ACR 7: Oh my gosh, I shouldn’t even bother explaining this one! ACR 7 is so incredibly powerful, you’ll never go back to your old copy of Photoshop, no matter how much you hate the new interface! With all new algorithms, ACR 7 can process your Raw files better than any other program on the market. Honestly, ACR 7 is worth the price of upgrading (once CS6 comes out of course XD)

Still not convinced? Go try Photoshop CS6 yourself by downloading the Public Beta at labs.adobe.com today!

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!

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!

Don’t ever make the assumption that just because Nikon releases the predecessor to the legendary D3 series, that camera is right for you, or that camera will improve your photography. I cannot stress enough that garbage in is garbage out, and if you aren’t a good shooter in the first place, buying a $6k body is not going to make you hot *&^%. No human body is perfect, so obviously the same applies to Camera Bodies. The Nikon D4 was launched a little over a month ago, and with good reason, it stirred up a lot of attention! 204, 800 ISO? Really? Seriously?! When I first read that little detail on the Nikon website I just about lept from my seat. This coming from a guy who started out on 64ASA b&w film and thought 400 ASA was incredible! For a guy like me, shooting things like concerts, having that low light capability is absolutely crucial (theirs one point for the D4!). Additionally, I do a ton of wildlife work, and having that 10fps is similarly, crucial. So without question, if I was debating what body would be best for me at the moment (the D4 or the D800), I would most definitely say the D4. But you are not me, and most likely you aren’t shooting concerts frequently, and maybe you don’t need that 10fps. Which raises the question: Are you sure that the D4 is right for you and your photography? While this little blog posting may seem short and to the point, I hope you can derive the point I’m trying to communicate to you here. Think about how that $6k hunk of metal and circuit-boards will help you improve your photography. What will it bring to the table? The D4 (nor any camera body) is not right for everyone, so make sure to think about these things before you go breaking the bank. And remember, most importantly, that camera body is nothing without your passion for photography! So get out, get shooting and have fun exploring your passion in this beautiful world we all share!

Image courtesy of Nikon USA

I’m often shocked when I hear someone talk about the importance of shooting Raw and when I ask them why they do it, they have no answer for me! If you’re a little shy on information, go give this a gander! It just might clear things up for you. Curious about what I shoot? My personal preference is to shoot in Raw+Jpeg or Raw (depends on the situation) but never just jpeg!

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If you look at these photographs or any other successfully wildlife photograph, one thing you will always be able to identify as a contributing element is a clean background that tells the story of the critters environment! A photograph should tell a story without words, so think about that when you make your images. Does the background I’m incorporating in my photograph improve my image or does it take away from it? While this is a thought process that should be sub-concious for you after practice, I was thinking about exactly that this past weekend when photographing Red Deer in Montebello, QC.

The Red Deer lives in beautiful pine forests amongst gorgeous view’s and scenery, when I made these images, I cropped them in the camera so as to show not only the critter’s magnificent pose, but also it’s environment, therefore communicating the grand nature of the subject. Background is everything in wildlife photography! Jay Maisel says that Light, Gesture and Color are the fundamentals of all successful images (notice the above image has all of these?), but for wildlife photography, I like to think of one other, background! Want to learn more about working the background? I’ll be hosting a webinar in the near future on the topic, so stay posted!

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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!

By the way, if you want to check out more about Le Parc Omega head here! 

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