João Almeida Photography | Blog

Photography links roundup | 18.05.2012

João Almeida — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:48:59 +0000

A few changes at my shared links posts: off goes the “Weekly roundup” title, in some weeks there was no post so I decided to drop the regular nature of this series, now I will post whenever there’s a interesting batch of links to share. Enough of small talk, here’s some of the interesting stuff for the last couple weeks:

Fostering homegrown photography in northern Myanmar | Matador Network

Ryan Libre about the fruits of his NGO at Myanmar.

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet | Gizmodo

It’s the story of Flickr and Yahoo but it could also be the story of Delicious, Upcoming, Jaiku, Dodgeball or many other promising startups being swallowed by Yahoo, Google or Microsoft. Most of the times big companies don’t care about community and innovation, they only care about monetizing the startup contents and integrating them into their big mashup of apps. That’s why Flickr lost the train on almost everything since being bought by Yahoo, infected by the disease of its parent company.

“If you can’t beat laser cat, you probably deserve to die.”

Using Telephoto Lenses | Cambridge In Colour

A couple of years ago I used to say that I wasn’t a fan of telephoto lenses, that telephoto lenses were for people who wanted to shoot squirrels far away, that telephoto lenses don’t fit my style of photography. Until a realized by myself what’s explained so perfectly in this article, and now I used quite often both in street and landscape photography.

Project : Walking by Cova da Moura | Street Photographers

Rui Palha, one of my favorite street photographers, switched downtown Lisbon (scenery of most of his photos) for Cova da Moura (one of Lisbon’s suburban slums) for a very nice photo project.

Triggertrap Mobile Is Really A Computerized Remote | DIYPhotography.net

Now you do high speed photography with your mobile phone, just as long as your device is an iPhone. An Android version would be sweet!

Weekly roundup | 24.04.2012

João Almeida — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:42:27 +0000

Here’s some of the interesting stuff for this week:

Photographers on Pinterest – The Definitive List | farbspiel photography

Are you a photographer and a Pinterest user? Then you must check Klaus Herrmann’s Definitive Potographer list, and while you’re there follow my pins.

Tim Hetherington Retrospective | PDN Photo of the Day

Yet another memorial of a fallen photographer…

Mongolia | Behance Network

A great Black and White photo set of Mongolia by Brice Braastad

How Not to Run an Instagram Account | The Next Web

Spanish Vogue was found using street photographer Sion Fullana’s photos without permission on Instagram. Not a good way to run your magazine’s social media…

100 days of daily photos

João Almeida — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:00:59 +0000

A hundred days of daily photos! Hundred days of daily bits of my life captured by a mobile device, hundred days that reflect all the different aspects of my daily life, some pleasant, some not, my travels but also my routines at work, the small things at home or my street explorations.

Such a round number makes this a perfect time to compile another selection of my favorite pics since last update, although this post’s fixation with the word hundred is misleading: the daily project has in fact, at the time of this post, reached the 113th photo, but that’s not as sexy as 100.

Keep following my #project366 uploads and other mobile snapshots directly on my tiny pics blog.

Weekly roundup | 21.04.2012

João Almeida — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:27:28 +0000

Here’s some of the interesting stuff to read in this weekned:

Portrait: Marsel van Oosten | 500px / Blog

One of my favorite outdoor photographers is featured on 500px.

What gear do adventure athletes and filmmakers carry? | Matador Network

Each photographer has its own style and obviously has its own strategy to carry the gear.

10 Things Martin Parr Can Teach You About Street Photography | Eric Kim Street Photography

Eric Kim gets compiled ten great ways in Martin Parr, one of my favorite street photographers, can inspire your work.

500px Android app is here! | 500px

500px just released their Android app and that’s great news!
Sure there were a few third party apps on Android Market (or Play Store, as now it’s called) but I feel an official mobile app should always be made in-house, to be related to the main application(even if it just means to share all the branding and logos).
I honestly believe that online services should always have a way for programmers to build stuff around it (a public API), but for me that has two main purposes: create clients for smaller platforms or, the most important, create mashups and alternative ways to browse and use the information of those services. A fine example of that is Flickr, with hundreds of original apps but when iOS and Android started to gain traction official apps were releases.

Mustang: Nepal’s former Kingdom of Lo | The Big Picture

Photo essay of one of Nepal’s most remote regions

My other English trip

João Almeida — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:46:52 +0000

Those who follow my updates more regularly knew that I went to the United Kingdom recently on a photo trip, and also know that it was a nature and landscape photography trip mainly focused on Dartmoor and Exmoor. So why are there only street shots on this post? Where are the landscapes, the ponies and the small rivers? The answer is simple.

I really like street photography so I always have an eye to what’s around me, even when I’m not dedicated to street photography, watching the small scenes and situations, capturing them with whatever device I have available, with this set all photos were captured with my compact camera and cell phone.

Unlike the Burma street shots, where me and Ruben were highly focused, these photos are the result of our midday wanderings between looking for sunrise and sunset spots, our lunch breaks, our regular stops for a pint in a colorful pub at an also colorful small English village or just looking the sights of a small little fishing village of Devon or Cornwall. If it looks they’re candid, relaxed and laid back there’s a good reason: that was our mood while I took them. I guess not all photos have to be intense and dramatic.

So you can think of it as another trip inside the main trip, a smaller trip that I feel is also worth sharing and also a great way to spice things up for the upcoming photos.

Stay tuned: the ponies, the landscapes and the forests are just around the corner! And don’t forget follow Ruben’s updates, like our first glimpse of Exmoor.

Weekly roundup | 15.04.2012

João Almeida — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:18:55 +0000

Due to family duties this week’s compiled links are only available today, think of it as a list of links for the upcoming of the workweek. This week the main subject has to be Facebook‘s acquisition of Instagram, but there are a few other cool things read:

Free Desktop Wallpapers and a new Photo Charity | Gavin Gough

Gavin Gough, traveler photographer extraordinaire, has an initiative that combines charity and goodies for your desktop.

My wedding at Woburn Abbey, Photos by Guy Collier | Richard Peters: Wildlife Photography blog

Wedding photography never was in my mind, but some photos and photographers almost make me think all I ever wanted to shoot is wedding photography. Like these at the wedding of Richard Peters (wildlife photographer and fellow nikonian).

From the North to the East | Mitchell Kanashkevich

Mitchell Kanashkevich has been Ehiopia for the last months, as usual he as great photos and stories to share.

Instagram is the best, Instagram is the worst | The Verge

Two The Verge editors battle arguments regarding Facebook’s most recent acquisition: Instagram.

Weekly roundup 31.03.2012

João Almeida — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:30:05 +0000

More photography related articles for your weekend, with a significant focus on the recent camera releases. I know I haven’t shared any Canon 5D Mark III link, I’m obviously biased towards Nikon, but easily admit the 5D3 is a helluva camera!

Next week probably won’t be a weekly link roundup, as I will be away from the computer in Southern England for some landscape photography, but you can follow my daily updates at your social network of choice using the links bellow, as long it’s Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

A day in the life of a photojournalist in Lisbon – in pictures | Guardian

Getting hit by the police in a recent protest in Lisbon got Patrícia de Melo Moreira featured at Guardian.

Nikon D3200 coming soon with a 24MP sensor | Nikon Rumors

The first details of the first of the three DSLR cameras Nikon is expected announce this year are starting to appear. Very interesting specs for a lower end camera.
But my main interest are the other two cameras that will be released later this year: the replacements for D300s and D7000, because it will help me define my road map to upgrade my gear.

I’m aiming for a full frame (Nikon FX) body and I’m hoping the new D7000 will be the flagship model for Nikon DX cameras and the new D300s will finally receive a FX sensor. A camera with less megapixel count than Nikon’s D800 but with better ISO performance, perfect for some low light photos like street photography (and also cheaper than the D800).

Having the Nikon’s entry model with 24MP DX sensor only backs my theory, but some rumors point otherwise…

DSLR Matches Medium Format | Tim Grey’s Blog

Great afterthoughts by Tim Grey regarding the highly praised Nikon D800 (like the impressive DxO result) that focuses on two interesting, and apparently dissonant, aspects: arguing that’s a good thing that technology limits probably aren’t what we thought and keeping it real by remembering that technology has never been a limit for creativity.

A Second Edit | Pixelated Image

Browsing your archive and giving a second look to some of your photos can bring good things.

Special Edition Fuji X-Pro 1 set for $9000? Yep! | Steve Huff Photos

A very limited edition of Fuji X1 Pro with all lenses in fancy suitcase for $9000? Fuji is clearly after Leica…

Uma casa Portuguesa

João Almeida — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:16:35 +0000

Uma casa Portuguesa / A Portuguese house.

Sometimes a photo series isn’t planned, thought, prepared. Sometimes it presents itself just before your eyes, even in places you’ve been countless times, even when you’re trying to stick a meal between a trip and an appointment.

It’s not the first time I shoot my family, but this time it happened so sudden, so fast that I only had my smartphone. Around a single meal several rural, Portuguese cliches: the green wine bottle, the kitsch tiles, dishes and tablecloth or the beloved sardines. And there’s also a calendar, but this one’s not featuring a woman with big jugs.

Weekly roundup 16.03.2012

João Almeida — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:12:39 +0000

More cool reading gathered throughout the week to read calmly this weekend:

The artist with the bad camera | Phaidon

It has to be the worst camera I’ve seen, even worse than shoe box pinholes.

6 Tips How to Master Shooting Street Photography with a DSLR | Eric Kim Street Photography

Valuable tips to master street photography from a true master.

Portraits of the Homeless by Lee Jeffries | LightBox

“If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things.”
Sebastião Salgado

75+ Inspirational Street Photography Books You Gotta Own | Eric Kim Street Photography

Great street photography books for your wishlist, and mine also, some I already own (like David Alan Harvey‘s Divided Soul or my latest acquisition of the photos of a nanny that shot in her spare time)

Weekly roundup 10.03.2012

João Almeida — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:26:18 +0000

Here’s some of the interesting stuff I found in the past week, this time posted a bit earlier for some cool weekend readings:

Should Photo Contests Require Original Image Files? | PhotoShelter Blog

A great discussion, specially in photojournalism or wildlife photography where the photographer is supposed to show reality. This reminds me the disqualified photo of Russian street fighters (http://www.petapixel.com/2010/03/03/world-press-photo-disqualifies-winner/) where it was disqualified for removing an unflattering foot but, for me, was cropped and processed way beyond reasonable.