Then today, I was considering some advice on blog content to help “promote” archived content.  One such technique is to do a theme of  “a year ago today…” and reference a post from that same day last year.  Well, last year today I did a neat little write-up on…yup, these little Cactus triggers.  Lo and behold, the one combination of cables, wires and gadgets I did not try was the one I demonstrated nearly a year ago to the day that does work with these guys.  Oh the joys of camera gadgetry!  With all the gear and gadgets we own, it’s really amazing that we are able to keep this stuff in our heads as we do.  Well, mine must have sprung a leak, because I ended up reading my own blog on how to configure my own gear!  Well, thank goodness for the blog, eh?

In honor of finally figuring out (from my own writing no less) how to create the shot I was trying to get, and in kind of a rebirth of the “What’s This?” series from last year, here’s that shot for you today.  The first person to guess what this is – wins!

I’ll give everyone a hint – it has to do with photography!   Oh, and as an aside, I am loving the noise reduction in LR3 Beta 2!  I was at ISO 100, but some noise still creeped in – nothing LR3B2 couldn’t cure rather quickly!

Also, in light of it being “tax day” here in the states, to lighten your mood, here’s a laugh from WTD (I’ve not posted one of their cartoons in a while – though I do keep visiting every day!)

Now in week 22, see if you can identify the latest picture of the day for the “What’s This?” series shown above.  Lastt week’s shot as a constructio garbage chute from the inside.  As promised I am including an exterior shot today so everyone can see what they look like from a “normal” perspective.

In other news, don’t forget the poll on the sidebar!  We’re at 30 votes and counting – let’s see if we cna break that 50 mark!  I also noticed that the feed readers are now over 500, and CB also hit a new one day high of 572!  Very exciting stuff to see that many people enjoying the blog.  Tomorrow’s Thursday Thoughts is none other than Rob Jones ot Towner Jones Photography.  You may recall he asked me to guest post on his blog a few weeks ago, so I invited him to come in here and do the same!  He’s got some great insights to share too, so be sure to stop back for that.  Until then, happy shooting!  Hope all your shots are good ones

Here’s the show notes:

• Cards as gifts
• Photo Contest Watcher
• Top 8 of ’08 Nominees thus far
  • The Online Photographer
  • Strobist
  • Photoshop Insider
  • Photowalk Pro
  • Jason D. Moore
  • Dave Cross Blog
  • Digital Photography Life

With so many blogs and podcasts out there, it’s tough though – some were in it last year, so I should give consideration to others, so who do I go with?  Let me know your favorites in the comments and the tallying shall begin.

ETA Update:  Here’s the link to find your Google Profile page:  Your Google Profile

In other blog-related news, don’t forget to vote in the poll on the sidebar! Only a few weeks left there  I’ve also got a link to my twitter, to my Google profile page (you’ve got a Google profile page, right?), and more I am sure will be forthcoming. So twitter me, I’ll tweet ya back!

Last, but not least is this week’s “What’s This?  Last week was a skyscraper from the ground-up, so everyone was right on the money. Back to a tougher one this week…can you decipher this?

Don’t forget to stop in tomorrow for the latest Thursday Thoughts With….  This weekI have the honor of talking with Michael Palmer, photographer and a friend of the blog.  So tune in for that tomorrow.  In the meantime, feel free to share your “guesses” on the week 19 image in the comments!  By the by…can anyone tell me anything different about the blog today (this is specific to the layout/design for today)?  If so, share that in the comments as well? *devious grin*  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow…

In the interests of keeping the “What’s This?” on schedule, we are now in week 18. Last week’s was in fact, the stained glass that a reader correctly identified rather quickly. So, I am hopefully going to make things a little more intriguing for you this week. Let’s see the first to identify this image:

Podcast Notes:

1. Gadget Infinity is the site to get the Cactus Triggers from – be careful to order for the correct lights
2. There are some great patterns inside CS3 (not available in CS4 anymore), just go to the following folder to find them: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Patterns\PostScript Patterns
3. Q&A – Recording Software, Crop Factors, and photo terminology

Wrap-up: Contests, Road Tip, & Polls

Happy shooting all, watch those apertures, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

As always, those who correctly identify the image from this cropped portion win fabulous prizes, win fame and fortune, money, money, money, and lots of photo gear and software….yeah okay, that part’s not true…but you do get bragging rights!

Some of you may have noticed that there is now a widget on the sidebar for my twitter account.  It’s kind of fun actually and I can see how so many are addicted.  I’m trying to post there more regularly, but cannot guarantee a lot of activity.  It’s really just daily stuff – work stuff, occasionally photo-related, but if you want a glimpse of the “personal me”, that would be the place to find out.

Also, don’t forget – today is the last day to vote in the TWIP photo contest.  The prize is a 1st generation Drobo.  I am currently in 7th place for vote tallies, so any help would be appreciated (not that I expect to win or anything, but stranger things have happened…)  The link to vote is here (you have to have a Photrade account)

In other news, be sure to stop in tomorrow for the latest Thursday Thoughts with Jason D. Moore!  Thanks in advance to Jason for taking the time to sit down with me and talk about a variety of photography subjects.  It really was an informative session and I learned a little more about him (which of course is the goal…).  If you’d like to be featured in an upcoming edition of Thursday Thoughts, and get some free referrals to your blog, let me know in the comments or via email and we’ll see what we can work out to help one another!

Well, that’s it for this Wednesday. Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow with Jason D. Moore!

So, here’s the last few weeks, cropped version and full versions:

Week 15 – CD Stack

Crop:

Full:

Week 14 – Turtle’s Mouth
Crop:

Full:

As you can tell, each of these had some downsides to where I didn’t like the whole capture, but portions would be fun to isolate out for their textures or looks, to see what others could come up with.  Thanks to everyone who has been participating in these weekly activities.

So, having done some house-keeping on the trend, here is this week’s version of “What’s This?”

If you post it, they will guess…that’s the theory I’m going with this week.  Anyone have any ideas?  I took a different approach to it this go around, hopefully a little more abstract…  Good luck, and Happy Shooting!

What's This - Week 13

As always, the winner…wins! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Here’s one for everyone…what’s this?

I had to go through some archives to find one that fit what I was looking for this week, but I found it.  This is a crop of a larger image.  The only thing I did was a little levels adjusting, the crop, and then some sharpening.  Can you identify this?  Share your thoughts in the comments!  The winner – wins!

As always, happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

To start, I’d like to call out for thanks fellow NAPP member Erik Bernskiold.  Not only is he a talented Photoshopper, but he knows quite a bit about web design too (and he’s like 1/3rd my age!).  Anyway, I was quite flattered when he asked me if I would be willing to participate in a short interview for his blog/website.  Needless to say, I accepted.  You can see the Q&A on his blog here.  Talk about tutorials – he crosses outside of Photoshop and does a lot of Adobe tutorials, so definitely a good guy to watch.  (Plus, he’s super-nice and always helpful.)

Next up, I’d like to also send out some thanks to Michael Johnston over at The Online Photographer who linked back to the blog here on his discussion of the Canon 5D.  For anyone who has read CB for any length of time, you know that TOP is where I go for my daily read of insightful, educational and theoretical musings on the industry of photography.  Always a cool thing to get a nod from one of the elite, so thanks Michael.

Finally, since yesterday I skipped over the “What’s This?”, there’s no better time than the present to insert another photo opportunity.  It should be fairly easy, but you never know…so, what’s this:

That’s it for today.  Happy shooting and we’ll see you here tomorrow.

Nothing fancy today – just something to whet your creativity – can you guess what this is?  It took me a while to dig through my archive of images to find one that I could crop this way and effectively not give it away.  The winner….well, wins!  Good luck to all, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Oh yeah, don’t forget to vote in the poll – how much time do you spend shooting for your own projects each month?

Rest assured, fellow bloggers, photogs, and CB readers all, I have remembered this week to make such a post.  Since there is nothing to reveal from last week, I’ll just get right to it – here’s this week’s mystery shot.  If you can identify it, then answer in the comments for:

What’s This? – Week 9

The first to get it right is the winner! Until tomorrow, fellow photogs, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

ETA:  I listened to the latest episode of TWIP (over at www.twipphoto.com) and realized the Aperture  Nature Workshop Contest is almost over.  I hastily added my latest landscape image to the contest, and have virtually no hope of winning, but in case anyone else has time to upload a quality photo (or wants to stop in and vote for mine), the contest link to sign up for free and submit images (also free) is here:  http://www.photrade.com/contest/aperturenatureworkshops

I will officially share the “What’s This?” answer from last week (Week 8). That was a shot of a candy wrapped in plastic. I captured that at Hammonds Candy Factory here in Denver when we visited in the spring before deciding to make the move out. COngrats to those that got it right and thanks to all who shared their thoughts in the comments. I’ll have a “What’s This?” later this evening if all goes well. Otherwise, it’ll get posted tomorrow along with the Thursday Thoughts. Until then, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

Any ideas?  Feel free to share them in the comments section below.  Correct guesses win…well, not much, just bragging rights.  But bragging rights are better than nothing, eh?  So venture a guess, who knows – you may get to brag!

In other news, the NAPP photowalk is coming up this weekend, so if you’ve not registered in a city near you, venture over to http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk to see if you’re near one that has any openings left – it should be a lot of fun, and that will have more than bragging rights for prizes!

I’ve not mentioned them in a while, so if you have 5 minutes to 5 hours availabe, stop over to 1001 Noisy Cameras for all the latest on camera news and information.  They’ve got everything from reviews, to sales ranks, and links to relevant blogs and official rumors of upcoming gear.  While they admittedly state that the rumor comes from DPReview, there is a suspicion that Canon will announce a 50D at Photokina this year!

So, any guesses for the latest edition of “What’s This?” Last week, the crop was from some fancy ornate crown molding in a capture from an old plantation house here in SC. It was kind of a stretch as I was pulling from my portfolio, rather than taking a shot specifically with the weekly theme in mind. This week I did a mite better though. I had hoped to have a tutorial compiled for publishing tonight too, but alas, t’was not meant to be. Someone did mention in the comments earlier this week though that the title page was notdisplaying correctly in their feed reader. Could anyone enlighten me further, as I don’t see any punctuation or anything wrong in the blog title header info. Thanks a bunch! Good luck with the theme, and we’ll see you out here again tomorrow! Happy shooting and watch those apertures…

In web news, I will say that there was an amazing post by a guest writer at Scott Kelby’s blog today. (I am going to refrain from my personal thoughts on the subject, but it’s worth reading – especially if you have a background in higher education like I do). I’d be interested in hearing what others think on this subject in the comments.

The other fun bit of news also involved another guest writing on Scott’s blog, courtesy of John Nack, one of the senior staff over at Adobe.  He wrote on his appearance about the desire for transparent windows and was met with a little bit of ruffled feathers from others in the field.  Check out the respective posts to the discussion here, here, and here to get Matt K.’s take, John’s take, and then Jeff Revel’s take.  Interesting world we live in.  Three people all with direct ties to “the man” and three different opinions on it.  I wonder which way Adobe is going to go on this?  While I realize that there is some agreement on parts of it, and alternatives vary depending on whether you’re talking about transparency or translucency, but to me, it’s a window that I have off on my second monitor anyway, so I don’t really care.  Go with John’s approach and devote R&D to other more meaningful improvements.  But, I said this would be a quick post today, and this is starting to ramble, so I’l leave it up to the readers:  Where do you think PS development should go?

So, moving quickly to the “What’s This?” subject for this week, I went through some of my own archives to see if I could find an interesting crop (and I did), so here is a crop of a much larger image. I’ve tried to keep some of the context, but at the same time make it intriguing to guess what this is. So, without further ado…What’s This?:

Last week, in case you hadn’t guessed it – it was a flower!  Congrats to those who knew and saved their comments for a more challenging post (ahem – today!)  Good luck, have fun, Happy Shooting and we’ll see you here tomorrow!

Good luck to everyone!  If the fun continues, I may be able to start offering prizes too (depends on whether any vendor would be interested in sponsoring the “What’s This Weekly”…so, Canon, Adobe, USRobotics, Apple, Microsoft, Joe’s Tire Shop…anyone interested?

Just kidding – this is all just for fun, so there’s not any prizes, just bragging rights, and hopefully a way to provide creative spark and motivation to look at things differently!

In the web news this week, just a couple things that may be of interest:

• ProPhotoLife has another video out on studio product lighting – 10 minutes well spent!
• TWIP does a video podcast on lighting a model in studio – also about 10 minutes…
• Digital Photography School has a 6-tip session on reducing camera shake – about a 3 minute read if you include the comments
• Tim’s Digital Darkroom via  a connection over at Hyperphocal has some very cool shots of a light bulb shattering (scroll down)…1-2 minutes depending on what else you may find of interest
• Naturally, Hyperphocal gets a nod too, not only because of the great articles they have there, but also because I have the “Cleaning your Gear” posted as an article there from yesterday – stop over and read their other articles – the one for today on Inkjets versus Dye Sub printers was very educational for me!

Altogether, about 30 minutes of stuff, so if you have half an hour to spare – take some time and visit these resources as they all have some really good content.  In the meantime, feel free to share other links to resources in the comments (as well as guess at this week’s edition of What’s This”).  Happy shooting, watch those apertures, and we’ll see you back here on Thursday!

Welcome to week 3 of the “What’s This?” series! Last week I had a close-up shot with some great guesses including carpet, a towel, and a toothbrush – but the answer, as it turns out, is a candle wick!

I had cropped out a portion of it, to give kind of a different twist! Thanks to all for participating! So, as we move into week3, here is another everyday object that I’ve zoomed in on, and taken a cropped portion to share. Can you guess what this is?

In other news, it seems I will be somewhat busy over the next few weeks with several trips on the horizon. Late June, a friend is getting married, and that will require a trip to NC. Then, shortly after that, I will be traveling (driving) to New York for the 4th of July festivities. Very shortly after I get back, I will likely be accompanying my wife out to Colorado as we transition to that area from SC. She’ll move on ahead to start her job, while I stay behind to close up shop and sell the house. Oh yeah, did I mention? We’re moving to Colorado!!!

So, for the last tidbit of news, I did actually knock out the tip for the week as previously mentioned: displacement maps! I read about this technique in my most recent issue of NAPP and had a few images that I thought it may work for, so thought to give it a whirl! Pretty neat effect, so feel free to try it out yourself!

CB Episode #44: Displacement Maps