September 9, 2010 by Mike Wong • Comments Off
Earlier this week, I received an email from Mac Holbert (one of the founders of Nash Editions and one of the recognized leaders and pioneers in digital printing) about a project he's working on with Henry Wilhem and David Mathews. The project is called The Center for the Image, or CFI. In short, the CFI is a non-profit organization formed to advance efforts to educate and assist institutions and individuals in their efforts to preserve their analog and digital images.
Let me mention right now, they are not asking for any money. Yes, they are looking for money to help fund their new group, but they don't want your money. Better yet, they are looking to get money from the Pepsi Refresh Project. Essentially anybody can submit an idea for funding through the Pepsi Refresh Project and those ideas are then posted online for the world to vote on. The project or idea with the most votes, wins. You can vote once a day for up to 10 different projects. All it takes to vote is a simple registration form (you can even register using your Facebook id) and you can vote.
I just voted for the CFI project a few minutes ago and plan to each day until the voting ends. Mac didn't ask me specifically to write about this but I have a lot of respect for Mac and the group of people he is working with and wanted to help spread the word. All it takes is a few minutes and you can help them get a grant from Pepsi that will benefit the entire creative and photographic community for years.
You can learn more about The Center For the Image on their web site and you can vote for their project on the Pepsi Refresh Project web site here.
September 9, 2010 by Mike Wong • Comments Off
I recently took an end-of-the-summer road trip with my family down to Lake Tahoe before school started up for my kids. It was my first time down there (same for my kids) and was quite the drive from Portland, OR but a good trip and vacation all the same. While I was down there, I took the opportunity to drive into Truckee, CA to visit with Elizabeth Carmel at her gallery there in Old Town Truckee that she runs with her husband.
First of all, I was really nervous when we walked in because it was hot outside and my kids were very tired from a long bike ride. If you have kids, you know what heat and exhaustion can do to a nine and six year old. Anyway, after keeping them from knocking over the large prints that Elizabeth has on display and getting them to sit down for a bit, I got a quick tour of the gallery and was blown away.
I've seen a lot of Elizabeth's work online in her portfolio galleries - and if you haven't seen it yet, stop now, go look and come back later - and have always been impressed, but seeing her large prints was incredible. She had a 6 foot tall shot of Horsetail Falls that was amazing. The cool thing was though that Elizabeth told me that a new recreation center had recently been completed there in Truckee and she put together a 10 foot tall version of the same shot using Genuine Fractals 6 and the Gallery Wrap feature for the recreation center could hang in their entry way. Of course, I had to drive over to the center and take a look (and a photo). It was the largest gallery wrap I've ever seen and it looked pretty amazing. Take a look for yourself.
August 28, 2010 by Mike Wong • 1 Comment
One could argue that processing your HDR photos AFTER they have been aligned, merged and tone-mapped by your HDR software of choice be it Photoshop CS5, Photomatix or any of the other HDR programs out there. In fact, photographer Brian Matiash (who is extremely skilled at HDR photography) says this in an installment of his HDR Best Practices guides.
To prove his point, he's started a new series in this blog called Behind the Curtain, where he shows you the tone mapped HDR image and the final image after post-processing. One of his keys to success in his post work is PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition. Brian has found a variety of effects that he really enjoys using to create his signature style and in this series he shares what those effects are. Take a look at his work (it's amazing) as it is sure to inspire you (it has me) to go out and shoot more and see just how far you can push PhotoTools.
So be sure to take a look at the first installment of Behind the Curtain - The Royal Clipper. It's amazing to see the before and after shots here.
May 17, 2010 by Mike Wong • Comments Off
We've got another great webinar planned in our onOne University Pro Webinar Series. This month, our good friend Vincent Versace will be in our Portland, Oregon office to present Bokeh: The Science of Focus and the Art of Blur. Here is a brief description of what you can expect.
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April 15, 2010 by Mike Wong • 1 Comment
It's time to get our April-May photo contest going! This month's theme is one of my personal subjects to photograph - clouds. Dark clouds. Light clouds. Clouds at sunrise. Clouds at sunset. Keep an eye out over the next 4 weeks for clouds and capture your best shot and submit your photo by adding it to the onOne Group on Flickr. Be sure to tag your photo "onOne-2010-05" so we can find it and consider it for the contest.
One new thing in this contest is that I'd like to ask that the photo you submit be one that is taken after today's date of April 15, 2010. For this one, no digging through your archives. Go out, have some fun and shoot something new!
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