Book Signing and Photography Seminar/Workshop at Borders and Self Portraits

Me, just in case you're from the media, here's a picture of me taken about two weeks ago. I've emailed many television stations and newspapers to let them know about the signings of "Digital Art Photography for Dummies" in:

1. Ft Myers Borders at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April Fools Day (April 1) no joke!
2. Ft. Lauderdale Borders at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 7.


Other than that, every photographer or artist should experiment with self portraits.

Here's how you do it:

1. Find a place to sit that's relatively clutter free both in front and in back. If you have to move a chair to the place go for it.
2. Check the lighting keep away from places where everything is casting a shadow.
3. Set your camera to portrait mode, look at the view finder and place the camera (use a tripod if you have to or a chair) so that it's pointing in the area where you will sit when it takes your picture.
4. Set the timer to the longest time there is. The timer shows up on your LCD screen as a clock (without a line crossed through it).
5. Place the camera where you want it and click on the shutter.
6. Quickly move to the place that you found where you will pose for a picture.
7. After the camera takes the picture look at the LCD screen to see if your head and shoulders are comfortably in the frame. If not zoom in or out to where you think you will be in the frame.
8. Set the timer again and click the shutter.
9. Check to see if you're framed well.
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9, this time practicing a pose, say leaning forward in with your arms resting on your knee (a writer's pose).

Woman of Butterflies

I really couldn't tell you why I like this subject. I took her picture in the butterfly refuge. Her whole looked interested me and I caught her just after I told her her hair was pretty (Su pelo es bonita...Puede tomar foto, por favor?)

She is an interesting photographic subject. At least to me anyway.

New Photography Class Online

It's here, the only one of its kind--
Photography for Writers and Bloggers
at Betterphoto.com

So come on now and spiff up the photos on your blog, giving them that WOW factor the visitors want to see. Take the course Photography for Writers and Bloggers.

Now that you've got a blog and are writing every day; learn how to get noticed by finding your best posts with photographs and rework them into pitches for articles so that you can submit them to publications.

UNESCO city center site in Mexico

UNESCO site, indeed. Here's the aqueduct in Morelia.

Notice how I angled the shot so that the aqueduct is most of what you see in the frame.

Good photography is focus, focus, focus.

Morelia, Mexico Colonial Style

Morelia's become quite the place. Spruced up with everything a discriminating tourist would want--coffee shops, music venues and colorful protests.

I'd give this place a 10!

Snowin' Butterflies

Elvis of the Insect World

The Monarch butterflies at this very moment are breeding high up in the mountains of Michoacan. Here are a few I caught yesterday while I was here.

FYI--This is an experience of a lifetime--actually getting to see the butterfly "snow."

There are millions of them. The "snow" is next...

Overexpose for a Beautiful Surprise

Most people think that overexposing a photo is its death. Not so, says Mr. Digital Art Photography for Dummies.

If you put your camera in Tv mode, set the shutter speed to anything from a quarter to one second and snap the picture in a very shady place, you'll have an art piece.

If the image turns out too bright, just tweak the levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels, slide outside sliders inward and inside slider to the crest of the histogram) in Photoshop, and you'll have a perfect impressionistic picture for your home or office.

Ahh, excuse me, there's a man eating fire in the street...

Street performer in Guadalajara.

Tequila Production

Let's process some more Tequila!

The Tequila Machine

Great shot, Matt. (I have to pat myself on the back sometimes).

Just love my Sony prosumer (there are three kinds of cameras--consumer, prosumer and professional) point-and-shoot.

This is a hand-held shot at a third of a second. The image stabilizer worked! (Okay, so there's a little white-out, but who the hell is going to bring a tripod into a tequila factory)>

The Tequila Machine

After the tequila makers rip apart the cacti the shreded core is processed in a machine like this.

Tequila, Mexico

Nice to be photographing full-time. I'm in Guadalajara now receiving a real good dose of Mexican culture.

Friend Lupe has taken me from huge markets to tiny towns out-of-town where her relatives live

Best of all, though, aside from falling out of my chair down some stairs at dinner, was the small town of, what else, Tequila.

Oh, I know what you're thinking...there's no town of Tequila, Tequila is some hot-stuff alcoholic beverage where you put some salt on your left hand, have a shot of Tequila in your right, and have a slice of lime nearby, then you lick the salt, drink the Tequila and bite the lime.

Okay, then, you got half the story; the other half is that Tequila is made in Tequila, the town, which is in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

On the way to Tequila, you see this, Tequila's beginning--cacti, millions of them.

Market Libertad, Guadalajara

Here I am, Guadalajara...at the Libertad Market.

Scorpions Bite

As I photographed the scorpion with my macro beaming inside the glass tank where the beast calls home, I wanted to get close, but then the thought of "What if this black blob with claws jumps up and gets me."

My camera suddenly drifted upward as the lens drew close.

It was dark in his abode. I tried flash, but I got a blast of white bouncing off the scorpion's handsome black outer shell.

Then I set the camera to 1000 ISO and drew the lens toward the wiggling wild thing.

Don't know if you know this, but I was shooting with a Sony point-and-shoot (7.2 mp and 12X optical), that, when there's little light, puts out a golden-red spotlight to help it focus on the object.

After the light went down the annoyed scorpion looked as if it could be in a Scorpions Gone Wild TV commercial.

Enough of this. Here's the beast of venom.

Cornered in Tikal

Wouldn't want to be inside here and have an animal on the outside. If I did what animal in that region would eat me alive?

Mid-Century Modern Chair Test

Remember those days when you had to answer the question: "Which one of these does not belong?"

In the above picture I've represented that theme in this small collage with some artistic objects.

Just one more creative thing you can do with art photography and a little photoshop.

P.S. I made these images black and white so they'd look more similar to each other.

Do you know which one doesn't belong in the picture?

Rinko Kikuchi

Found this while gathering pictures for my new class Photography for Writers and Bloggers. Couldn't have had better luck. Take a look at the postion of her eyes. Hot.

This was one very weird chick in the movie Babel.

Feathering and Moving

When I started my sign gig (selling pictures of mid-century signs); I worked in Photoshop 4.

I hadn't learned how to take the background of one pic and put it into another.

Well, I have now.

All you gotta do is:

1. Open both images in Photoshop or Elements,
2. Click on the lasso or magnetic lasso selection tool.
3. Input a feathering value in the top part of the window. (I'd type in 2 or 3 for starters).
4. Click and drag around the part of the image you want to move.
5. Click on the move tool and move the part of the image to the background image (the other image you have open).

Whadaya think?

Color or Black and White?

Here's an interesting image (I think, anyway); one that you could find in an art gallery.

Why?

Because it tells a story, one of how things get discarded, one of how fast technology changes, and one of randomness.

But the real question I have is which photo do you like better, the one in black and white or the one in color. Leave a comment below.

Photo Restoration Class

It's that time of the month again. My photo restoration class begins tomorrow.

Grab your photos from the attic and make 'em look like they were just taken (well, almost).

By the way that cute kid on Santa's lap...it would be me.

If Not now...

Can't Get Better Than This

Paris, December, 2006

So that's why they always say to photograph at dusk and/or dawn!

Advantages of dawn or dusk photography

Don't have to use tripod.
You can point your camera into the sun.
You get a better depth of field (on a clear day).
The color, oh the color you'll get
Soft shadows.

Can you name more?

Somewhere in France

But where? You decide?

Post your comment if you know.