Halloween Contest Winners

Here's the winners of Matt and Betty's Halloween Photography Contest

First Place--Keffners




Second Place--MastersBLynn

Tonight Is the Night...For Real

Coming up today, Halloween

*Photos of a Halloween parade at sea off the coast of Mexico...

*Halloween Contest Winners...

...And your host, the Digital Traveler's greatest offering for the up coming Holidays...

Digital Art Photography for Dummies
If you've got a digital camera...you've gotta have this book!

Cruise Travel--Crusin' the High Seas Day-by-Day

Cooking Light Meets the Red Hats

Here I am on my way to Acapulco the first day of an 8 days cruise. From a piece of the LA shoreline (at San Pedro, the port city) to text-on-the-deck of Slippery when Wet, there are all kinds of images and text elements that one can catch on a cruise with a little imagination stirred by the Pacific Ocean breeze.

On board are two obvious groups, people who are part of a Cooking Light magazine's cruise special and the riotous roars of the over-50-set-and-proud-of-it.

On this boat is food served freestyle, that is there are no set times one has to eat as food is served all the time at one onboard restaurant or another.

Since I'm a fitness buff, I'm excited about the fully-equipped gym, especially to work my core after eating like there’s no tomorrow. My plan for not gaining a lot of weight is to eat small amounts six times a day and...when I take an extra cookie, I'll eat only half.

People on this boat are all ages from 20s to 90s, all races, and all genders including a couple of transgender people here and there. I introduced myself to one vary large 'woman' and shook her hand, biting my lips at the grip 'she' took. It was like a Sumo wrestler's.

And…of course…I'm always on the lookout for those who have an interest in photography, sparking up conversations that end up in my giving a card with the URL of this blog listed, uttering the ho-hum, "I wrote this book."

To be continued, at a slightly different URL (dependent on the title of the entry); different time (when I feel like or get time to write/upload); and from a different place (Hey! This ship moves at 20 knots).

Now, for audience participation--Guess what boat I'm on?

Old Architecture Photography--The American Southwest

Old Architecture--Paris, France

The Graveyard...

Old Architecture Photography Palm Springs CA

I took this a few years ago. It's of the old Biltmore Hotel in Palm Springs. It's since been torn down, still known as the Biltmore, but now it's a high-end housing development.

Old Architecture Photography--Buenos Aires

ANNOUNCEMENT--HALLOWEEN CONTEST DEADLINE
EXTENDED TO FRIDAY, OCT. 27 AT MIDNIGHT

And now to our regularly scheduled Web cast. In honor of the upcoming Christmas-for-Weirdo holiday I hereby post photos of architecture that's, well, downright creepy.

To some, though, those architectural aficionados who covet the old, it's priceless.

Yet, if you take one of these and add a ghost or two, you've got real terror (oops wrong term) horror.

Feel free to take one and add a ghost and submit to the comments of this site.

Happy Weirdo Christmas...Only 7 more frightful nights...


architecture, photography, spooky Halloween, Halloween

Give a Contest; Enter a Contest

I'm all for Yin and Yang, Karma, give and take, balance...so today as AOL's Journal Editor, Jeff announces the contest Betty and I are giving with a great line about Halloween--"Halloween is Christmas for weirdos."

After I woke up I found another contest not to give, but to enter from Writer's Digest.

I polished up my Unautumn Photography Poem that I posted awhile back, that Google has noticed big time.

Took another look at it; and pondered whether I should submit to a contest with or without punctuation.

Here's the poem without the tiny beasts from my blog entry--

Takin' the fall
Is what I've done
Fallin out of Autumn
An autumn photographer
...Drop out

No golden leaves
Nor maple ooz
Neither cool nor warm
Not hot or cold

Stiff breeze
Not
Still, so very still
Desert Autumn
Mountains status quo

Neither flowers
Nor leaves
Red and orange
And yellow

No fall, no pay
for a short day
Still, there's no way
To say autumn
In the desert

...And here it is with the wild little beasts--

Takin' the fall
Is what I've done.
Fallin out of Autumn,
An autumn photographer
...Drop out.

No golden leaves
Nor maple ooz.
Neither cool nor warm,
Not hot or cold.

Stiff breeze?
Not!
Still, so very still...
Desert Autumn
Mountains status quo.

Neither flowers,
Nor leaves,
Red and orange
And yellow.

No fall, no pay
for a short day.
Still, there's no way
To say autumn
In the desert.

K, my question is which poem looks best?

poetry, autumn, grammar, seasons

A Test of Ashcroft Sensibility

With John Ashcroft making the rounds on television to promote his book Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice, I felt that I needed to test his sensiblities with this photograph taken at Angkor Wat.



John Ashcroft, XXX, politics, books

Bush Blows Baghdad

Geni George outside the lamp,
America rubs on Election Day.
To out its Democrats.
You George W--get out of the way.

A sucking sound ensues,
Cutting and running
Bush into the lamp
for good.

Bush, Baghdad, poetry, poem

Sorting Out Photo Sets from Paris to Holidays

Don't forget--Tonight is the night when dead leaves fly...

The Halloween photography contest submissions are accepted by email to both matthewbam@aol.com and Rap2123.com beginning tomorrow.

Now that we're talking about holidays, we can chat even more about themes. Halloween provides a theme by which you can shoot your photographs.
*You can shoot nothing but photos that have black and orange in them (now this would require that you zoom in to an object that has just those colors).
*You can shoot nothing but pumpkins of all different shapes and/or focus in on them as they are displayed for sale (minimize your background clutter so that the viewer just sees mostly pumpkins).
* As those pre-Halloween parties come 'round, you can shoot only people dressed as witches.

Last, and perhaps most important is that if you have a set of photos--say 9--you can use Photoshop automation to put them together in rows and columns to create a Warholisque type of image.

Here's my one photo from my favorite subjects for a photo set--Paris cafes.

Paris, Halloween theme, Halloween photography, color photography

Texture

Halloween Photography Contest

Tonight is the night when dead leaves fly...



And in order to celebrate American Online members, Betty and Matt are sponsoring a Halloween photography contest. Now's the time to capture those dead leaves in the air and any other spooky-to-funny places or objects that you find from those in your neighborhood, to those that you've shot anywhere in the world.

Here's the spook (oops, I mean scoop):

Contest Rules
1. Photographs can be old or new, scanned, digital or any other image that belongs to you or your family or that you shot yourself.
2. Vintage photos need to be restored to near perfect condition, new photos can be anything created solely in Photoshop to photographs without manipulation.
3. All photographs must have a scary and/or funny theme.
4. All subjects in the photographs must be fully dressed (black's always a good color).
5. Text (as in words, sentences, poems) is allowed (and even encouraged).
6. Submit your photos to MatthewBam and rap4143

Can't think of anything? Okay, we'll help!

Ideas:
1. photos from a graveyard
2. photos of a neighbors Halloween decoration (ask first, before you snap).
3. photos of your friends and family dressed up (We're not thinking snapshots here, but some real action and/or storytelling--put your kid on a broom then snap a picture).
4. photo sets arranged in a collage--take four photos one-after-another of while you roll a jack-o-lantern down the street.
5. A photo of a witch is nice, but a photo of a witch doing a cartwheel is better.

Okay, so what do you get if you win?

1. Your photo published both on Betty's Journal (My Day, My Interests) and/or on Matt's blog (the Digital Traveler*)
2. Two first prize winners will 1 receive their photo blown (12 X 16) up and printed professionally on fine art paper and fully matted. First prize winners will also receive a signed copy of "Digital Art Photography for Dummies." Five second place winners will receive the printed copy of their photo.
(Please, one submission only!)

Submissions will be accepted from Oct. 20th to 25th and winners will be announced on Halloween (Oct. 31). Email submissions to MatthewBam and rap4143 and each entry will be posted on Betty's Journal and Matt's Blog. To see your picture and the rest of the entries go to Halloween Photography.

South of France Photography

There's nothing like the South of France, a place that's nice to travel to anytime of the year. I went there last Christmas, and in terms of photography, the low sun made for some interesting shots (like the one above).

From Roman ruins to Little Paris' the South of France has it all.

Here's my entries from last year--

City of Arles
Province of Provence

Friday the Thirteenth with Photoshop

Here's a quick tip. First I snapped a picture of a famous artist's house in France. Then I used some layer masks to get spooky wind.

First Question: Whose house was this?
Second Question (for which I'll give you the answer): What can you buy to learn how to make this art photo?
That's right! Digital Art Photography for Dummies.

digital photography for dummies, spooky house, art and photography, photoshop tutorial

Journalism and Art

What better way is there to enhance one's art skills than talking to various artists. About two weeks ago, I received a call from an editor, saying that she needed some freelance articles written for "Spotlight," an entertainment column in the Inland California Press Enterprise.

Fasinating job it is--my second story was published today. The story has a twist in that this singer was on a mission to find some music by an obscure middle-of-the-last century artist. Hope you'll take a look.

Now, I realize that music is not photographic art, and perhaps you're thinking I'm losing focus here. Well, perhaps I am...

But...for me every art form is connected.

Last, I leave you with a photograph of a talented musician, a photograph that a friend of mine took at the "Grand Slam for Children" fund raiser last weekend in Las Vagas.

Who's playing the paino in this photograph?

entertainment, benefit, photography, journalism

Al Gore's New Commercial

Today I was in sort of an environmentally aware mood.

I saw Al Gore on TV and he was coming out in favor of California's Prop 87. Didn't know how I was going to vote on that one, but I'm with Gore if it has to do with the environment.

And, coincidently enough, as I researched the matter, I find that Al Gore is in Palm Springs at this very minute (cause he unveiled the commercial at a hotel here). Just outside this great town (a democratic bastion surrounded by Republican golfers).

This photo is for Al Gore.

It's the wind farms just outside Palm Springs (west of here on the way to LA); a pollutionless way to get energy.

My only quip, though, with the wind farms is, as more and more of them go up (some entering the city limits), I feel if I was a bird or something, I might get chewed up in one of the windmills.

Image Manipulation play: I played with this on in the Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter setting. While Photoshop's photo filters don't work as good as the real thing attached to your camera, you still can get a kind of interesting effect. And there are so many options to play with, with this seemingly simple command--color pickers for which you can click on the color graphic to watch your picture use hundreds of color filter effects. I picked a shade of lavender for this one.

Al Gore, photo filter, photoshop tutorial, global warming

Scary Text about Congress Photography Tutorial

With all those site meters and such, you can see how people get to my blog...click on site meter below.
Knowing that people have been searching for "scary text" for Halloween, I've decided to let you know how to get it.

Many probably already know.

...And, for you political junkies, I've made a cartoon. If it offends...please know that art comes in all shapes and forms and much of it has a powerful message whether you agree with or not. As with respect to the rest of this blog, please take what you want and leave the rest. But..most of all...please consider buying my book!

You can get the scary font (typeface) by downloading from here. Directions for installing in Windows or Mac are here.

Then, open your image in Photoshop, click on T in the Tools palette and type your Halloween message to all who'll read it.

Oh, come on now, let a little loose, go ahead...get political. You don't even have to be "fair and balanced." Or do you?

Halloween, scary text, Halloween decorations, Foley

Performance Art Photography

Received yet another Blog of the Day award yesterday (Saturday), that makes two for last week!

Feel like dancing today, not in an ordinary way, but dance as creative movement (to make art in terms of the participants' surroundings combined with the movement of the group as a whole). Take a look below at the shots that were taken from the second story of the Centre Pompidou, Paris' modern art museum.



Blog of the Day, performance art, art and photography, Pompidou

Photography for Parents

Whether it be shooting a portrait or framing a landscape, or capturing favorite things, teaching young people to understand both the technical and the artful within the realm of digital art photography requires that you take a multi-disciplinary approach to art (and life). This tutorial is for parents to develop photography skills at the same time as teaching other subjects—math and language—to their children.

ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY--SUBJECT CHARACTERISTICS
Who knows your child better than you? You know what your child likes and dislikes. You can use this information to help them find things they want to photograph, not only just for the sake of a picture, but to help them learn a little more about the object/subject they are taking apicture of. If your child likes animals, give them some information about them beforehand (say before a trip to the zoo). Or read them a story about an animal (Rudyard Kipling's the Jungle Book is a good one). Then ask them the following:

1. What animal do you really like?
2. What part of the animal do you wonder about?
3. What does the animal eat?

After they give you an answer have them photograph it. For example, if they like the spots of a leopard, have them zoom in so that they can get a close-up of just that--a leopard's spots. FYI: Kipling wrote a story about how a leopard got its spots.

PORTRAITS--HOW DO YOU DISCOVER CHARACTER TRAITS?
Consider how students reveal their feelings and attitudes differently. Some of us may show our individual character with immediate transparency, while others may be more difficult to 'read' at first. The portrait photographer must become proficient at studying people around them. Talking about character traits can begin with the family. When you read your child a book to your child, ask them from time to time to create pictures in their mind of how a character in a story looks and acts. Then, for an artful photograph of your child or other family member, take a picture of your child while having them imagine and act like a character from a story (or television show).

Now give the camera to your child (any age, really, from four and up). Since children know many characters from books and television , they can take photographs of each other, portraying these characters in new and different ways. Children also can produce quality images of family members and friends by finding a common ground among them--a shared sport or hobby-- and using that subject for photos they take of each other. For example, if the family plays football, give the camera to one of the players on the sidelines and have them photograph the game.

Don't forget, also, object photography. Nothing beats the repitition of a photograph of different bats lined up against a fence, or a close up of a puppet in a home-made puppet show.

MASTER THE CRAFT WITH MATH
Photography, like any art form, is based on some basic math-based rules of composition, such as the Rule of Thirds (making a landscape photo, for example, with one-third sky and two thirds land) and using a vanishing point (drawing out in perspective of a scene and finding something similar to photograph).

After children master those composition techniques that you teach them (don't do this if they're not interested in photography!), they can put their own artistic interpretation of a scene to make an art photo. They can experiment with various camera settings (f-stop, shutter speed) by writing down the values of what's shown in the camera each time they shoot at each value. Without even knowing the term f-stop and/or shutter speed, they will see a pattern (lightness/darkness of photo for example) after they record the numbers.

THE TREK FROM CAMERA TO COMPUTER
Snapping a photograph is only the beginning. Digital art photography requires following certain paths before you can print and frame your output (final image), including
1. Getting the image into your computer
2. Digitally tweaking the image: With your image open in Photoshop (or your image editor of choice), there's practically no end to the tweaking that you can do.
3. Saving your image in the appropriate file type: Whether your shooting with a high-end digital Single Reflex Camera or a mid-level point-and-shoot, the files in which your camera store your picture will ultimately be saved in a high resolution format called TIF, file format. Your digital image will travel across a number of devices and platforms before it is finally printed. As it travels, you'll learn how to save it so its resolution stays in tact throughout its travels.

FOREGROUNDS AND BACKGROUNDS
Keeping shots clean and uncluttered is paramount to presenting a great art photograph. That's not to say that you or your child can't shoot something detailed and ornamental, but make sure your audience sees what you wanted to show, not clutter and unnecessary background distractions. In order to do this take various photographs yourself with foregrounds, middle grounds and backgrounds to use in class for showing students how they can visualize a three dimensional space in a two dimensional photograph.

WHO CAME UP WITH THESE IDEAS?
As a post-career teacher who taught for 14 years--7 in Oakland and 7 in Daly City, CA, I researched and wrote examples of the Rule of Thirds and other art composition techniques (including all the math technicalities) for my book "Digital Art Photography for Dummies (Wiley, 2005). When I wrote the book, I imagined all of the readers to all of the students who I have instructed throughout the years, not only as a public school teacher, but also as a university professor. I've taught various courses from technology to linguistics at National and Chapman universities. For more information (and a lot of multidisciplinary fun), visit my bog at http://digitalartphotographyfordummies.blogspot.com. And, last, I've had the pleasure of sharing my thoughts at tech conferences throughout the state of California.

photography tutorial, parents, art and photography, family activities

ANOTHER AWARD FOR BLOG OF THE DAY

Surprised when I received my comment email this evening that my blog was chosen for Blog of the Day for photoblogs for yesterday's post, Unautumn Photography Poem.

Celebrate by picking a up a copy of my book!

Blog of the Day, photoblog, art and photography, blog award

Unautumn Photography Poem

Everybody's takin' about autumn. My AOL buddy, Betty, is out photographing it. I'm jealous as I look at her pic from New Hampshire and mine from the Southern California desert.

I leave you with this...a man with an absent fall.


Takin' the fall
Is what I've done
Fallin out of Autumn
An autumn photographer
...Drop out

No golden leaves
Nor maple ooz
Neither cool nor warm
Not hot or cold

Stiff breeze
Not
Still, so very still
Desert Autumn
Mountains status quo

Neither flowers
Nor leaves
Red and orange
And yellow

No fall, no pay
for a short day
Still, there's no way
To say autumn
In the desert

But only if you stay.

Question: Would you trade an unautumn followed a pleasent winter of warm days and cool nights for a spectacular autumn and cold, snowy winter? Write your thoughts.

Storyboards: Planning Your Photo Shoot

Ever want to record an event while traveling?

Before you got to the store, for example, you can draw out what you'll do when you are there. The event pictured above is one where I went to the store with a friend in Paris. I actually took a photograph of each framed drawn (of course you can tell, shopping for coffee is rather mundane, but shows an idea of what picture I want very clearly).

The point here is the inclusion of close-up shots. How many close up shots are used to show this, the purchase of a bag of coffee?

art, media, art and photography, story

Tiki Daze

Today's feed of the day at Feedster is Tiki Talk.

I've had my Tiki daze/days, days when in a tropical daze pounding on my Mac G3 keyboard producing articles for the Desert Sun about the Tiki scene in Palm Springs during the 1950s, interviewing Tiki celebrities like C.C. Rider who carves Tikis in his thongs using a chain saw and participating in a closed-door meeting announcing the unveiling of the Caliante Tropics remodel, the renovation of one of the old-style tiki motels of long ago.

The ultimate Tiki trip was creating a giant tiki from several photographs of an original that I found, ready to be discarded, in the front of the remains of what was Tiki Spa.

The tiki can be found in my book, "Digital Art Photography for Dummies," as the images used to illustate Photoshop's stitch option. Instead of stitching a landscape (as is usually done), I turn several photographs of a tiki on their sides and stitch them together for a giant image of one of the 60s originals. I sold it too, for a hundred dollars (okay, didn't blow up my bank account that much, but every hundred dollars counts).

Last, here's a clip from my book, The Book of Signs: The Twentieth Century, now in proposal form sitting on the desks of many editors in New York City, to whom I request, "Please review, as you'll get more kicks than found on Route 66!"

The Tropics--Dozens of words are associated with the sea, from coast to beach and beyond. Some words, such as Trader Vic's have been around for so long that they've become institutions of tropical public thought. Text that whispers with a soft ocean breeze—the Copacabana and Tropicana.

The business of the tropics comes from torch-lit resorts to strip clubs in back allys, each sign a signal of an island-like escape that'll take your worries away. And, not to forget, the great Polynesian God who has resurrected himself in popular culture--the Tiki.

popular culture, tiki, art and photography, Route 66

My Betterphoto.com Classes

Come on and spend a month with me online at my BetterPhoto.com Digital Art Photography class.Or brush up on your piece of a blast from the past by restoring your old photos at my BetterPhoto.com Photo Restoration class.

At a Glance: 1. Beginner to the "serious hobbyist" or advanced amateur, but more advanced photographers would benefit too.
2. Learn to explore the world of more artful photography. 3. Work with color in more creative ways.

Requirements:

1. Digital or film-based camera. 2. At least one zoom lens (the one that comes with the camera is OK). 3. Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, but other image processing programs that allow you perform minor tweaking on photos will do.

How it Works:
Every Wednesday, for 4 weeks, beginning on Wednesday, October 4, 2006, you will receive a unique photo assignment which they will have 7 days to complete and upload for critique.

online classes, photography, photography classes, photo restoration