JMaz Photography

We've Moved!

2010-02-05T08:17:00.002-05:00

Well folks, the time has come for me to consolidate! Yup, this blog is moving.

The new JMazPhoto.com site is online and I welcome you all to come follow me there. I have been able to import all of the content from here into my new blog location, which I am very happy for. This blog contains posts going all the way back to 2007, so I really didn't want to just abandon it. Now all of this historic content, and all the new stuff I am creating going forward, is all found under my own JMaz Photo domain. Happy days indeed!

So please, update your subscriptions and come visit me in my new home. Thank you!

-Josh M

-JMaz Photo

New in the store: Snow on Pemaquid Point

2010-01-31T17:16:00.003-05:00

I added a new print to the store today. "Snow on Pemaquid Point" is one of the freshest photos listed, taken just over a week ago on a recent family trip to Maine. While we were there I drove down to Bristol with my daughter to take some pictures at the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. We arrived about fifteen minutes before sunset, and really only had twenty minutes before heading back in time for our dinner plans. So on a short time budget, no tripod in hand, and with my four-year-old daughter in tow, I climbed down the snowy bank and onto the frozen rocks.

The evening sun seemed to make the winter shooting a little bit easier. There was no harsh glare on the snow, and the shadows in the snow gave the land a lot of texture. I had taken some pictures here some years ago in the summer and it is a real contrast to have the small crowd of tourists exchanged for the snow-covered rocks.

We didn't manage to get back up the hill in time to catch the sunset from the other side of the light house. When I go back again one evening I'll have to start on the other side of campus, shooting down from the lighthouse and over the rocks with the sun setting behind it all. Still, it is always nice to have an outing with my daughter, no matter how little time we spent at the shoot.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39724631

Snow on Pemaquid Point - 8x10 photo print

One week of pictures

2010-01-08T22:07:00.005-05:00

As you probably already know, this year I'm taking on the Project 365 photography challenge. Not that taking any one photo is a real challenge, but taking at least one (hopefully good) photo every day for 365 consecutive days will be a challenge. From this challenge I hope to push myself to learn new techniques and to learn more about my own personal style. Some days are more creative than others, but making the effort and putting in the thought will certainly be good practice.

So yesterday marked the end of the first week of the challenge. Interestingly enough I was browsing through a fellow flickerite's photos today and came across their final Project 365 photo to which I had commented "Congratulations! I don't think I would have made it through the first week!" I'm glad that I have already proven myself wrong! I've also proven that, at least thus far, I do better at creating interesting images when I'm not really trying to do so. My eye sees a good photo opportunity, but creating the opportunity has proven to be more difficult. Fortunately I have some cute kids in the house to photograph when nothing else seems to be working.

So I think it's going to be a good year. I made it through the first week, which is enough for me to understand that I'm not going to be motivated enough to really commit to being creative it every day. (Sooner or later there will be a photo of my bed-side table taken with my iPhone just before I go to sleep.) But you know what? I'm OK with that. As long as I keep shooting and keep learning I will come out of this being an even better photographer.

Here are the titles and links for the first seven, seen in the strip on the right...

1. Exploring new things - 001/356

2. New hat - 002/365

3. Solubility - 003/365

4. Christmas nest eggs - 004/365

5. Innocent Wonder - 005/365

6. We have traveled far to get here - 006/365

7. My new computer - 007/365

Exploring new things - Project 365

2010-01-01T21:47:00.002-05:00

Exploring new things - 001/356

Today I started my first "Project 365" photography challenge. The challenge is to take a photograph every single day for 365 consecutive days. I opted to start my challenge, as many others have, on January 1st of this new year. I've considered starting this project several times before, and it always seemed like quite the obligation for a man who works full-time (not in photography) and comes home to a house full of a young family. I recently got one of those fancy iPhones with a camera and lots of photos apps though, so on days when I'm able to shoot with the SLR and run things through the DAM computer I will be getting creating with the best camera found that side of my pants pocket.

When I first decided to do this 356 project I started running through ideas about what my first post would be. I love being creative and coming up with things that I think would be interesting. In reality though, it's going to come down to what I find the time for. My family is one of those things I make time for, so I guess it's little surprise that my first photo is of my youngest son.

We were picking up down in the playroom when I noticed he had pulled himself up on the train table and was acting really adorable. I took advantage of this and ran off to get the camera and the flash. He and I had a good time playing with different lighting by bouncing the flash off of different surfaces. Ultimately I thought this was the one to go with, with him being really interested in this little black flashbox that Daddy spent so much time fussing with.

So off I go into what will prove to be not only a personal challenge, but hopefully something that is also enriching and fun! Feel free to browse on over to my flickr pool (follow the link on the photo) and see how I progress in this new adventure!

Boston without a camera

2009-12-28T11:57:00.001-05:00

One thing I always try to do is to is to make every trip a photo opportunity. Well, a misplaced memory card or two and suddenly I'm in the city with no more than the camera built into my phone. (It will still be a good family trip of course.) I do believe though that the best camera is the one you have with you, so let's see what I can find in two megapixels or less.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Now on the POE Team

2009-12-28T08:43:00.003-05:00

Back from the Christmas weekend and getting ready to return to the "real world" again. One thing I discovered over the weekend is that I am now officially on the POE Team over at Etsy. The POE (Photographers Of Etsy) Team is a community based group that helps raise awareness of all the great artists who participate in the team. Besides offering a way to find other artists of interest on Etsy, the POE Team also creates collections of selected photos for their blog and YouTube collages. You can check out the POE Team Blog at http://photographersofetsy.blogspot.com/. Now that I am on the team list I will be sure to become active on the team blog and get some of my works out on display. What a nice holiday treat this is!

HD in my DSLR & Christmas videos

2009-12-23T15:24:00.007-05:00

For my birthday this year my wonderful family bought me an upgrade to my beloved digital SLR camera. (Which one is not relevant to this posting. If you care enough to know then you probably know how to find out.) One of the new features in this camera, and many other newer SLR's, is the ability to shoot video from the still camera. I've always traveled with both the big SLR for pictures and a little portable point-and-shoot for snapshots and videos. Now the big camera can do both, and it does it well.

Digital Photography Review receently posted a Beginner's guide to HD video on their site. The article helps to clarify some of the differences and similarities between the big, the little, and the task-specific cameras. It's not so much a comparison of brands and models, but rather an explanation of the technology that goes into each and the effects that has on the output. One significant difference they call out is that the DSL's currently lack a good auto-focus, so changing the composition may cause problems while shooting.

One of the things I immediately liked about this feature is that now I can use all the lenses in my collection when shooting videos with the camera. Rather than being tied to what is built on to the pocket camera I now have the option of swapping out a wide lens for a long lens depending on what I am trying to capture.

As a little test and demonstration, I captured this video of our local community band using the DSLR and a medium range lens. I was able to frame the stage nicely by zooming in, without having to depend on any "digital zoom" capability of the camera. The picture quality is great, and it's available in HD format as well!

As a bit of a contrast, here is another clip from the same concert. Admittedly, this example is shot with my camera-phone and not my pocket camera, but the results are pretty similar to what I would expect from the latter. Without the zoom capability, framing the shot just isn't the same.

So I think I'm going to enjoy having the ability to shoot video right from the big camera. It's not as feature-rich as a dedicated video camera, but it's something I will always have with me when the moment arrives. With Christmas less then a day away, I think there will be some good chances coming up soon!

Oh, and Happy Holidays everyone!

Tell me a story, Pictory

2009-12-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

If you haven't bumped into Pictory yet I recommend taking a peek. It's a bit like The Big Picture, only more art & story than news & current events. The online magazine features big, beautiful photographs, each with a short story by the artist, organized by theme into different showcases. The first feature, Overseas and Overwhelmed, was a beautiful collection from around Europe and beyond and made a wonderful opening to the online magazine. The second and currently latest feature is on the topic of San Fransisco, and absolutely wonderful small city in California that I had the pleasure of living near for a decade or so. Seeing these images I could really feel the spirit of this quirky and geographically small big city. So browse on over, take a look, and maybe come back for their later installments to see how this new site grows out.

Photography in Extreme Cold

2009-12-21T23:42:00.001-05:00

Digital Photography School recently did an article on Photography in Extreme Cold. We've had a few snow storms up here already this year, so I've already been out with a camera a number of times. One thing this article did remind me of is it take better care of the camera as I go back inside. Letting the condensation happen on the outside of a lens doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you realize that the condensation also happens on the sensitive inner workings of the camera and lenses as well it changes that perception quite a bit. Click the link to read the full article and find out how to prevent this avoidable water damage and get some other good tips on shooting in the cold as well.

Socialize your photo blog

2009-12-21T21:55:00.005-05:00

Google's RSS feed processing tool FeedBurner recently added a feature to submit new posts to your feed directly to a Twitter account. (See Socializing your feed with Twitter) I have been manually tweeting about new posts to the blog, so this seems like a handy feature to enable. It gives control over which posts will be tweeted and also over how the tweet will be organized. Since the URL is shortened by the new goo.gl service I predict it may ultimately provide the ability to track site hits that come through that redirector as well. We already use FeedBurner on this blog, which ties in Analytics, AdSense, a ton of feed optimizations, and now this Socialize feature as well. One thing is for sure, it makes for easy management of things on my end! Thanks again, SkyNet.

Remembering old friends in old photos

2009-12-18T00:46:00.005-05:00

One of the great things about photographs is their ability to help us recall memories. Google recently added a face recognition feature to their Picasa photo software, and I have to admit it's been a joy using it to go through old photos and tagging my friends. There are other programs out there that do the same thing, so you can find your joy in whichever package suits you.

Part of this process has been a technical joy. I remember once going through the effort of manually tagging every photo of any of our kids over the course of a single year. It was one of the most tedious things I have ever had to do at the computer. (Hint: don't try to do it all in a weekend.) Now this face tagging technology has taken a huge chunk of this work away by programatically recognizing the structure of peoples' faces and sorting them by the people they belong to. Tagging huge lots of photos has been easy and it's almost fun to do. Within a few hours I had tagged several thousand pictures of each one of us in the family. Even for many of the faces that the software was not certain of, half of the guesses are accurate and I need only to click once to accept that decision. What a long way we have come.

Beyond the capability of this semi-automated face tagging, I've also been loving going through all my digital photos going back over a decade. Seeing my photography skills and style change over the years has been interesting. Seeing my friends and myself grow and change over the years has been heartwarming. Life is good, you just have to know how to look at things at the right angle or in the right light. Photography is my outlet for all the good that I see, and I've seen a lot of great friends and a lot of beautiful places. After the holidays I'd like to take some time and perhaps reprocess some older works. I've been marking a few nice shots that I'm sure I can make something good from. Better yet, maybe I'll (finally) start scanning in my older prints and film and enjoy remembering more of my friends from this good life.

Sunset at the Cranberry Bogs

2009-12-11T12:04:00.000-05:00

There was a lovely sunset at the cranberry bogs the other day. (Well, maybe it was last month, but that was a day other than today.) We had taken the dogs and the kids out for an afternoon walk an we were rewarded with a nice colorful greeting to the evening. The fall colors have passed from the trees and the snow had not yet begun to fall, so the golden brown dormant plants were further colored from the golden sunlight coming in from the horizon. New England can be beautiful any time of the year.

Three new prints for sale in the store today!

2009-12-04T15:01:00.003-05:00

I have added a few new prints to the Etsy store over the past couple days. The goal is to average about one print a day until there are several pages of prints for my customers to choose from. I also had a very successful review in an Etsy Virtual Labs store critique. Looks like so far I am doing a lot of the right things. Now get on over to the store to choose one of my fine art photo prints and enjoy free shipping on sales now through the end of the year!

Discovery - 8x10 fine art photo print

Description

A young girl explores the tall grass by a creek, discovering that even when everything appears the same from a distance they are all unique upon themselves.

North Bridge Daylily - 8x10 fine art photo print

Description

The visitor center at the Old North Bridge in Concord is a lovely place surrounded by many old gardens gone past. I can only imagine the beautiful landscape that existed back in the time of the American Revolutionary War. This daylily grew along one of the stone paved walkways that wind through these historic gardens.

Watching Over Water - 8x10 fine art photo print

Description

This photo is of an art installation found at a winery in the Napa Valley region of northern California. The rolling "golden" hills of the ridgeline provide separation between the blue skies and the blues water within the image, while the patina on the installation provides a contrast in both color and in texture.

First steps

2009-12-01T19:12:00.004-05:00

Well, there it is. My first sale. And my first positive feedback. I sold a print titled "Daybreak at the Lake" this week and the buyer loves it. (For that matter, so do I!) I'm putting a bit of effort in up front to get some traffic into my Etsy site, and hopfully that traffic will amount to more and more sales. If was great fun to post things to flickr and get all the feedback there, but actually prodcuing something that someone will have hanging in their home is a whole new thing. If you haven't visited yet, stop on by http://jmaz.etsy.com/ and see what's up on the block. Thank you!

-JMaz

I'm back, and everything is for sale!

2009-11-29T14:45:00.002-05:00

Hello again my friends! Yes, yes, it has been a while. I wanted to get the word out about my new shop over on the Etsy community site. I recently started putting my prints up for sale and I'm very excited about actually doing something with my works. As you know I have been taking wonderful pictures for years now, and many of them never make it past this blog. Well, it's time to start putting my money where my mouth is... or is that putting my lens where there money is? Well, whatever we want to call it, I want you all to come visit. You can find my new shop at http://jmaz.etsy.com. Come on by and pick out your favorites today!

New look, new URL

2009-03-14T23:48:00.002-04:00

I recently decided that I was going to freshen up my relationship with my photo blog. In the past few days I have changed the blog's address to be part of my own domain, and I have redesigned the site template to give it a new look and feel. I'm also going to work hard at keeping up with regular updates! I'm sure you'll find the change refreshing, and I hope you will continue to find great joy in my photos. Thank you for being a reader!

-Josh

Girl and Grandpa

2009-03-14T17:51:00.001-04:00

Girl and Grandpa

Grandpa helps his little girl use the binoculars to look out the bay window. Have I mentioned how much I love my 50mm prime lens? It really does capture some beautiful light. I got this photo of my daughter with her grandpa late last year using only the light from the Christmas star hanging over their heads. It has become a special photo for us... a beautiful picture of a beautiful moment.

The star in the window

2009-03-07T08:27:00.001-05:00

The star in the window

A point of the Christmas star hanging in Papa's window It has been close to forever since I have updated this blog and thought perhaps it was time I got back to business.

This is a photo I took at my father-in-law's house this past winter. I was having a good time shooting in low light with my 50mm prime lens. I love the way it captures such light and color even with very little available light. I might consider touching this one up to remove the reflection of the house light from the window, What do you think, does it need a touch up?

Light waves

2008-08-26T23:39:00.001-04:00

Light waves

Neon lights at the aquarium

Lovers in Honolulu

2008-07-07T23:41:00.001-04:00

Lovers in Honolulu

Dorothy and I sharing a romantic sunset in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Pemaquid Point Light

2008-07-03T23:38:00.001-04:00

Pemaquid Point Light

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Bristol, ME. This is my favorite composition from the set. I think the rocks are really neat. November 2006

Evening light

2008-07-01T06:17:00.001-04:00

Evening light

The sun lights these clouds from the side just before sunset in Utah

Friends on a Mission walk

2008-06-26T19:32:00.001-04:00

Friends on a Mission walk

Four walkers crest a small hill on the way to the base of Mission Peak in Fremont, California.

Steam engine

2008-06-17T22:58:00.001-04:00

Steam engine

I'm pretty sure this is an antique steam engine put out to decay on display.

Return of geese and goslings

2008-06-16T00:17:00.001-04:00

Return of geese and goslings

The geese have returned with their young. Only two little ones this year... I hope they make it! I think they started off with five young ones last year.

I spotted them for the first time today as I was looking out the bedroom window. They slipped away while I was getting the camera but after a short walk through the woods I found them slipping further down the pond.

As I learn more about photography I'm starting to recognize the limitations of my equipment. I shot this with my 55-200mm lens stretched all the way out and I was a little surprised at how soft the birds looked even though they were the focus point. Ah well... a little sharpness filter, a slight crop, convert the RAW to JPG and here they are!