PhotoAbuse – The Blog

I enjoy photography. The learning process is never ending. I think that is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. I am pretty sure if you asked any working photographer if they have learned all there is to know about photography they could not look you in the eye and say yes. Once you figure one thing out, up pops another. Sort of like Whack a Mole.

Back in the day, I would search book stores. Once I found an interesting book I would take it home and read it like it was the only book I had and then practice, practice, practice. Many times though, there were no new titles on the shelves. Not to be deterred, I just went home and browsed through a book I already had on the shelf and went out and practiced, practiced, practiced.

Then a funny thing happened. I discovered digital photography and the internet.

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Every once in awhile I submit a picture to Photo Friday. This is a friendly site where there is a weekly theme and you submit a link if you have something interesting. Usually, there are a couple hundred submissions and you vote for your favorites the following week. It’s as fun and inspirational to browse through all the links as it is humbling sometimes. There are some really really good pictures out there!

A couple of my pictures have been chosen as “Noteworthy” over the years and it is a real thrill for me. It’s always nice to know someone else likes your stuff!

The last challenge of the year was “The Best of  2009″. Once again, there were some really good submissions. I had a picture in mind for this and submitted it.

We had gone to a dog festival in Wheaton in August and they had just finished a frisbee catching demonstration. As everyone was walking away, I saw the trainer bring out a dog that wasn’t in the show. She was 2yrs old and pretty new to the frisbee thing so he thought she could use a little practice with a lot of people around. I made about 25 pictures of her practicing and liked this one the best.

I looked this morning to see what the new challenge was and saw that I got a Noteworthy on my picture! Thanks to everyone who voted for me. It may not seem like a big thing but at the very least, it does let me know that there are folks out there who like my pictures. That’s a pretty big thing for me!

More often than not, I run out of good ideas. I used to come up with good ideas all the time. Well, they seemed like good ideas to me at least!

One of the cool things about photography, is that when you need a little inspiration, or are in a rut, you can surf the interwebs looking at different photography sites. I belong to a few photography related sites and find them to be a good source of inspiration. To an extent. It seems that each site develops its own personality and it shows when you look at the photos posted there or read the comments. Each site also has a great variety of photographers from the seasoned pros to the beginners with their first cameras. When you go to the forums on these sites you can find some good information too. Especially if there are a few knowlegeable senior members who will share with everyone. Some sites are wonky. ie. they only talk about photography gear. Some sites are just gallery sites where everyone posts their photos and everyone comments "Nice Shot". Some are critique sites where you will get varying responses ranging from "Nice Shot" to "What were you thinking?" and everything in between. All of these sites are good and serve a useful purpose.

But when I am looking for inspiration and just want to look at photos that will inspire me, there are only a couple of sites I go to. One of those sites is the Sacremento Bee photoblog The Frame. You will find a great selection of all kinds of photographs that I think are pretty darn inspirational. Have a look. You won’t regret it.

Well, it’s that time of year. Once again, it’s time to do your civic duty and vote. Vote for your favorite Photoblog that is! This post is not a shameless plug for you to vote for my site, but to go see some sites that are pretty incredible. There is a lot of good photography out there and you can go Here to see nominated sites and vote for a few of them! You can nominate a worthy site too if you don’t see it there.

Enjoy the look!

Sunday mornings here are usually spent drinking coffee and catching up on news feeds that show up on my trusty Google Reader and my iGoogle homepage. I depend on my feeds to get a glimpse of what is going on in the world. I have many sources to ensure that I’m not getting just parts of the story. You know, the whole liberal media thing! The only thing I watch on TV anymore dealing with current events is The Daily Show & The Colbert Report so my feeds and homepage sources are important to me.

This morning, one article in particular caught my eye. It was this article written by Leslie Sanchez dealing with the effect of the internet on this years presidential election. The numbers she referred to were pretty impressive.

It would appear that Mr. Obama kicked some major tail when it came to social networking. His campaign used the internet to their advantage and it paid off. From another source, the following quote:

“John Mccain is aware of the Internet” – McCain campaign Internet strategist Mark Soohoo.

That is an amazing statement when you think about it. This is a quote from June 25th of 2008. I could understand it if he had said this in, say, 1998, but not 2008! I would have hoped for a better answer than that.

McCain and Obama had people to get their candidates message out on the internet. Obama’s team seems to have taken advantage of what the internet has to offer and took things to the next level. Mr. Soohoo, on the other hand, probably still gets excited when he sees a message in his inbox stating that he won $25,000,000.00 in the Internet Lottery…..