Today I had a photographer friend message me, asking why he was getting a black stripe at the bottom of his pictures. I knew immediately what he was talking about, because I know he recently bought some flashes and wireless remotes and is in the process of experimenting with them. This made me realize how many new photographers may be using their cameras and taking awesome pictures but they may not really understand how their camera works. Why is this important? Because if you do not fully understand how your equipment works you are limiting your creativity. An artist who creates images using paint and brushes will paint better pictures if they understand how colors can be mixed to create new ones. It is the same for a photographer if you understand the tools you use to create your images you open yourself up to much wider creative freedoms.

One of the first things that is necessary to learn when using flash or off camera flash with your photography is how your camera shutter works and the relationship it has with x-sync or sync speed. The video below is probably one of the best beginner videos I have ever seen when it comes to explaining this concept. Mark Wallace (@jmarkwallace), at Snapfactory.com has made this video which is the first in his amazing collection. Visit his video series here.

This post is not about photography directly, but how the world around us has changed and continues to do so. Why should you care? You could always just not use Facebook or Twitter. If you are going to be marketing yourself in any way you owe it to yourself to at least listen.

What are your thoughts on why you should be using social media? Is it just a big waste of time? I think it really is all about how choose to use it.

One of things I love about both life and photography is that you are always learning. To learn you need to not only practice your craft every day but to open your eyes to what others around you say and do. In David duChemin’s podcast, Within the Frame – Episode 20 he says this:

The snap shot is the one that you whip by and take whatever comes your way, but a photograph that communicates what you think and feel about a scene takes a little more intentionality to create.

This is a very important nugget of information to think about for any photographer, no matter how long you have been creating images. Photography is about communicating an idea or a feeling. Building your vision into the ultimate photographic story is something that David is a master at. Learning how to do this is not easy but with constant practice and learning, we all can get a little bit closer to it.

The rest of David’s Podcast collection for his book, Within The Frame, The Journey of Photographic Vision, are available here

I also highly recommend two eBooks written by David: TEN (10 Ways To Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involve Buying Gear.) and TEN MORE (10 More Ways To Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involve Buying Gear.) They are both very well written and a joy to look at.

David duChemin is a Vancouver-based freelance humanitarian and world photographer. Take a look at his amazing images here: http://www.pixelatedimage.com/

UPDATE: October 21, 2009
David has just officially launched his 3rd eBook and it’s probably the best out of all three DRAWING THE EYE – Creating Stronger Images Through Visual Mass
Don’t go out and buy a new lens go buy this eBook instead.

Fall is now in full force. The mornings are crisp and wet. It feels like frost could come any day now. The leaves seem to be much more colorful this year. Does this mean we are in for a cold winter?

Fall Leaves

A nice article about how to take vibrant fall photos from Vancouver photographer Andrew Ferguson is available here

~ Click on the photo above to see it larger

Alright, I’m sure 90% of you reading this will be saying what rock did this guy crawl out from under? I have known about blogs and WordPress for many years but I had never taken the time to actually join in on the fun of blogging. I started this one after I integrated it with my galleries giving me a reason to write about the pictures I post and possibly some helpful insights or interesting things about photography.

I love using WordPress as my interface for the blog because it is so customizable and just about anything you can think of has been created as a Plugin for it. Once I started getting comments on my entries I soon realized that when I replied to the comments the replies were not going back to the original person who commented. I had this strange expectation that this would be a built in function. Thinking about it a bit longer it makes sense that it is not built in because it then would assume anyone commenting is giving you permission to email them back. This is not always the case, even though I’m sure most people would appreciate knowing you read their comment.

During my visit to another Blog today, (also being powered by WordPress), I noticed a little check box that says “Notify me of follow-up comments via email.” I quickly jumped into the search box and found the Plugin being used that administers this ability. Now when you decide to comment on one of my posts you will have the option to click on the check box that allows the site to email you back when a follow up comment happens. You will also get an email with a link to click on asking you to confirm that you really want to subscribe.

Hopefully this will make things easier for the people that take the time to share their thoughts with me.

You can read about this Plugin here, written by @markjaquith, thanks Mark!