Canon Blogger: Learning Digital Photography » WTD

Pick a theme – tell a story

Jason — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:16:11 +0000

When working on capturing your own creative vision, here’s another useful tip in getting the most out of your work – pick a theme when looking for creative inspiration. A theme can be a useful cornerstone or building block which you can use as a springboard to get started on projects.

The reason why themes are such useful tools is because this can also give you the basis for telling a story, which is a commonality of many powerful and evocative works, whether that story is natural beauty (landscapes), urban decay (architecture), romantic moments (wedding photography), etc.

I’ve put together a short list of a couple great starting points for themes to tell your creative stories:

Laughter
Faces
Circles
Skies
Glass
Fences
Freedom

Any themes that catch your eye – give you a creative idea? What about other ideas or themes? I’d love to hear your ideas, so feel free to share them in the comment section, or via email. You can reach me, as always, at jason canonblogger com. Happy shooting everyone! Don’t forget the August contest to win a Wacom Bamboo fun is underway – with the Flickr thread up and running here: Win a Wacom! Now, to kick start the weekend… a little WTD humor:

Grab the Feed

We’ll see you back here on Monday!

Facelift Friday

Jason — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:30:30 +0000

With February now in the archives, I figured this may be as good a time as any to get a head start on some Spring Cleaning with the blog. The theme I had been using for the last year or two had been getting a little dated, and the designer has not issued any updates since 2007. Additionally, some portions of the blog just were taking more muscling to conform to the evolving standards of CSS, XHTML, plugins, and even WordPress itself. So, consider this a Facelift Friday!

Those of you on the blog, you can see what I am talking about – this new theme is much more photo friendly – the header image is more standardized, so I can start putting more of my images into the rotation for everyone to enjoy. Plugins also enjoy more support, as does the RSS, calendar, and other sidebar features. For those of you picking this up via the feeds, please take some time to stop over and enjoy the new layout. This is, of course, the “first look”, and I will likely be making some adjustments as things settle in, including widening the body width for the main posting area, and dressing up the edges a little. Any ideas for what to consider? More pics? Perhaps some page links? (I noticed the pages area is now not visible from the main one…) Feel free to chime in now while I am still in “clean-up” mode!

Okay, so the Spring Cleaning is a little premature, but felt it was needed due not only to update some features, but also due to some coding deficiencies were brought to my attention (thanks, and shout outs to Kerry of Camera Dojo!). Anyway, on a happy note, I’ll leave you with a little WTD humor since it’s been a while for a comic post:

What the Duck

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the new theme/layout in the comments – it’s now or never to see your feedback implemented! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here Monday morning!

Food for Thought

Jason — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:18:01 +0000

Well, I was going to save the podcast for Tuesday, but decided since some of the information was from this week that I had better put it out before it gets “old”, so a new podcast is available for your listening pleasure. Consider it your Friday Food For Thought! (I know, I gave it a different title within the audio recording). In other news, according to Google Analytics and Feedburner data, CB hit an all time high in reader count yesterday with 566 people tuning in for Jen’s interview! Thanks again go out to Jen Rinaldi for taking the time to sit down and participate in the Thursday Thoughts series.

Not much other news to share – going out on two meetup events tonight in downtown Denver so should have several Christmas-y type pictures for sharing throughout the week next week. Last but not least, here’s your Friday Funny from What the Duck:

[podcast]http://www.canonblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/audio/CBPodcast62.mp3[/podcast]

Another Photo Finish Friday

Jason — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:16:11 +0000

With another Friday coming to an end, I am squeaking this one in under the wire too. After a deluge of rain delayed dinner and a few other odds and ends, I find myself finally sitting down to write the Friday post at 10:47 pm. Thankfully, the details are all worked out in advance so it really requires no additional work on my part.

As promised, my latest web gallery is up and viewable on the photo site directly at this link here: A Day in the Park, but a few previews of the ones I really loved have lightbox versions below:

Also of interest, and just in time for the weekend, the latest installment of the TOP test has been compiled and published. I still have a few questions to finish, and 2 of these I am culling from my image library for samples, so you will have to examine pictures this go around – so it’s real life shots that need evaluation, not just textbook definitions…although there’s plenty of that too. Hopefully this one will be a little more challenging, so take it and share your scores today: Top Test – Advanced Photography Exam

The portal page is also new, and the original exam page has almso moved relative to the folder structure movement from outside CB to inside CB (makes tracking easier)…Enjoy the exams and let me know if you have any ideas (An Expert or Pro level exam is also something I am considering compiling but I really would need some pros help in putting that together).

Until Monday then, here’s your weekly installment of WTD;

Until Monday, then, enjoy the weekend, happy shooting, and watch those apertures!