November 14th, 2009

I seem to have an affliction of taking on projects that require skills I don’t really have. Take jewelry photography for example. I took on the project not really knowing how to shoot jewelry, but knowing that if I provided some nice photos, I’d get money in return. Works for me.
I knew it was probably going to be difficult, and it was. Jewelry is shiny, which means it reflects everything: You, your camera, your dog. You name it. After a few shots to confirm the reflect-everything-shiny-ness (I was in denial), I promptly headed out and picked up a light tent.
A light tent is essentially a white fabric cube with one side open so you can shoot whatever is inside. You then point a flash at the cube, which creates a nice white surface for the jewelry to reflect. Sure, if you zoom in far enough, you might still see fido in the reflection, but it’s good enough.
After few hours of jewelry wrangling, I had my shots. Once I got them into my computer, I did a little voodoo photoshop work to produce what you see above. After the break, check out one more piece. (more…)
November 6th, 2009
Do you know someone that always wins something? That person wasn’t me… until today. I won a ColorChecker Passport from Mike at OnOne Software (via Twitter!). If you’re confused about what it is or what it does, I’ll quickly explain. It’s a color chart for photographers to help them get more accurate color. Since I’m an occasional photographer, it’ll come in handy.
So how did I win a $99 chart on Twitter? It started a few weeks ago when I found out they would occasionally give out promo codes for their $20 iPhone app via Twitter. I began following them and a few days later was able to snag a code for their $2 lite version. Fast forward to today and they started giving out promo codes for the full $20 version. I wasn’t fast enough for the first batch, but luckily snagged one from the second batch.
A few minutes later, there was an announcement that they were giving away a ColorChecker Passport if you could guess a number between 1 and 812. I had no idea what it was, but who can pass up a chance to win free stuff. I picked 109 (since 9, my lucky number, seemed a little low) and the answer was 113. Close enough!
Today, I’m a winner (Thanks, Mike at OnOne Software!). Tomorrow, I’ll be going back to that guy who never wins anything.