The just-published LensFlare 35 (Episode -36) features a podcast with yours truly and a slideshow in which I talk about the lighting of some of my favorite images. Click here to check it out.

I’m more than proud to announce that I will be teaching in NYC on Sunday, March 14th. Adorama will be hosting my ‘Speedliter’s Intensive’ seminar  at their flagship store in Manhattan’s Flatiron District (42 W 18th Street).

Click on the photo above to get all the details from Adorama’s site.

Details on dates for the ‘Speedliter’s Intensive’ in Orlando and other cities will be announced later this week.

Richard Avedon: Darkness & Light

Paul Caponigro

John Paul Caponigro

Joe McNally Climbs The Empire State Building

Annie Leibovitz Shoots Marie Antoinette

Drew Gardner Shoots Helen Pankhurst – Descendants Series

Masters of Photography Diane Arbus Part 1

Helmut Newton by June Newton

Joel Meyerowitz Photographs Ground Zero

John Sexton Talks About B&W In A Digital Age

Walter Iooss on Sports Photography

Surf Photographer Art Brewer

Martin Luther’s King’s famous “I have a dream” speech is as moving and meaningful today as it was 46 years ago.

If you do nothing else on this MLK Civil Rights Day, watch this video and embrace MLK’s message.

You’ll find the complete text of the speech here.

“Excuse me? Is that a camera-phone in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” There’s no doubt that the iPhone has revolutionized the world of “point-and-shoot” photography. With over 1000 photography apps in the iTunes store, it boggles the mind that anything else gets done in the world these days.

So now, the first-ever APPOS: iPhone App Awards & Photo Contest is about to get underway. Sponsored by the great folks at Adorama, the contest has two parts: a popular vote on the best iPhone photo apps and an iPhone photo contest.  Click here to head to the contest site.

The APPOS Awards will cover six categories of iPhone Apps: colorization, masking/cropping, filters, zoom, panoramic and stop action. Along with honoring the software titles and their developers, Adorama will showcase the winning Photo Apps, chosen by popular vote of site visitors. The winners of the iPhone photo contest will be chosen by a panel of judges, in categories including Nature, People, Humor and Creative/Special Effects.

Wish I Could Enter…

The APPOS prize pool is incredible. The Grand Prize winner will get a $1000 Adorama gift card. Ten 2nd-place winners will get a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Fifteen 3rd-place winners will get a Canon Pixma MP560 Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer. Thirty 4th-place winners will get a $100 Adorama gift card. Twenty-five 5th-place winners will get a $50 gift card to the Apple App Store. That’s 81 opportunities to win! You can read more about the prizes right here.

I can’t enter… because I’m a judge. The good news (for me anyway) is that several of my favorite photographers are also judges. Let’s see, the judges are:

• Scott Kelby—champion of digital photographers and Photoshopers worldwide
• Joe McNally—the man I lovingly call “the Indiana Jones of modern photography”
• Eric Meola—a Canon Explorer of Light and all-around master of photographic color
• Moose Peterson—renowned wildlife photographer and workshop leader
• Your’s truly
• Boomer & Carton—a pair of lively NYC radio personas from WFAN

Photo entries and votes on Apps will be accepted from January 15 to February 16, 2010.

The winners will be announced in March.

My inner-geek loves early January. That’s when the Consumer Electronics Show takes over Las Vegas. CES is the biggest annual gathering of techies, geeks and electronic gadgeteers on the planet. With 1.4 million square feet of new electronics on display, one can spend days wandering with legions of fellow technophiles.

Yes, yes, yes. I strongly believe in David duChemin’s slogan “Gear is good. Vision is better.” But, I love CES because it’s like taking a trip into the future (without the headache afterward). Not many of these new gadgets will thrive or even survive. But, the ideas behind them often endure and multiply.

Here are the ideas and gadgets from CES 2010 that I think are most relevant to the future of photography:

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Panasonic unveiled a two-eyed camcorder that shoots 3D in full HD. It’s MSRP is $22,000. Can 3D home videos be far behind? Photo and details on DV.com.

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The larger format of the Skiff e-reader leapfrogs the Kindle and Nook. Here’s yet another reason that paperboys will not come back from extinction. The day of Harry Potter’s newspapers is not far off. Details & photo at Gizmodo. Skiff Reader site.

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Sharp looks to expand color gamut of LCD TVs by adding yellow pixels. Move over RGB! If this works, it could be a boon for the future of wide gamut monitors. IF.  Sharp press release.

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Haier (a China-sized electronics conglomerate) demo’d a prototype TV that is completely wireless (not even a power cord!). No word on whether remotes will become lose-proof. This is another demonstration of how WiTricity (wireless electricity) continues to sneak into the real world. Details from Gizmodo.

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While still in the infancy of HDSLR cinematography, a handful of forward-thinking bloggers hit the CES floor with crazy (and tiny) video rigs. Note that the camera may be shrinking, but these guys still like to carry a big mic. Pix on Gizmodo.

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Freeloader Pro solar charger allows you to charge DSLR batteries and all kinds of other devices out in the bush country using just the sun. No word on how many Freeloaders it would take to jump start a Profoto 7B. See it demo’d on CNET TV.

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Skype-enabled TVs: Sykpe was demo’d on large Panasonic and LG HDTVs. Not sure I’d want anyone’s face to be that big while I’m on the phone. But the trend of merging the TV with the Internet continues on many fronts. Details & photo on Engadget. Comments on Gizmodo. Details at Skype.

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Casio updated its super-slow-mo pocket cams with the EX-FH100. Last year’s model was plagued by noise. Many have reported that the quality of the new model is much better. Shoots at a range of speeds from 120fps all the way up to 1000 fps and also at 1fetyptb (one-frame-every-time-you-push-the-button). Pre-order on Amazon. Read about it on Gizmodo.

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Eye-fi wireless SD cards step speed up to 802.11n. Someday I might come up with a good reason to buy one. Details from Engadget. Buy it on Amazon.

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Kodak announces PlaySport pocket-sized HD camcorders that are supposedly waterproof to 10 ft. This will be helpful when you drink too much at the mid-summer office party. Kodak press release.

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Samsung NX10 features APS-C sensor, interchangeable lenses, electronic viewfinder. Think of it as a DSLR without the R. Hopefully Canon and Nikon are paying attention. Details on DPReview.com.

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Parrot demo’d the AR.drone, a 4-propellor, almost-any-idiot-can-fly-it helicopter that was controlled with an iPhone. Yep, an iPhone. Watch the video. One of these and the next item would be a fun combo to play with. Details and video on Parrot.com.
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Sony’s Bloggie pocket camcorder has more features than Flip Mino (like a lens that swivels 270º). Also, a lower price. Darn. Christmas just passed. See it at Sony. Order your Bloggie now on Amazon.

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Liquid Image debuted the first scuba mask with a camera built in. This now means that our toaster the only thing in our house that does not have a camera built into it. Details at Liquid Image.

A lot of people wonder about the value of Twitter. I don’t blame them. I’m not one who wants to learn about every minutia of someone’s life via the machine-gunning of Tweets.

For me, Twitter continues to be a great way for me to share links and resources about photography. As you can see, that’s about all I use it for. Occasionally, I’ll send a quick howdy or a jab out to a friend. The bit.ly links listed below will lead you to the article or site that I’m Tweeting. The @name will take you to that person’s Twitter page.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter (or learn more about Twitter), click here.

Given that I did not publish a synopsis over the holidays, here’s a listing of my Tweets along with a few Tweets that mention me from the past three weeks.

I received an email from a student at Brooks Institute this morning. He asked me to share my thoughts on his portfolio site. If he’s got the courage to ask, I’ve got the time to share some thoughts. For all it matters, his name could have been “Syl”. I went down a similar path at Brooks nearly 30 years ago.

It’s really hard to accept, when you spend so much time and pay so much money to others for an education, that you are still at the beginning of a very long journey. Of course, going to the School of Hard Knocks is no easier, faster, or cheaper.

So here’s what came to mind, in my pre-dawn, pre-coffee state of mind, about a portfolio site that had loads of small photos shot of many different subjects in many different styles:

Your site says you are a student, which is what you are, but it’s not what you always want to be. It shouts this through your text, your images and the layout.

Your URL is part of your brand. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t use an intermediate site name in your URL (like www.example.com/syl_Arena).  For most pro shooters, their name is their URL… as in SylArena.com.

It’s too obvious that you built your site on a WordPress theme. I love WordPress. But, it’s too apparent on your portfolio site. Instead, set your portfolio up on a templated site like Livebooks EDU site or similar ($99/year). You want to look like a pro, at least in terms of design, right from the start.

A portfolio site is about vision, not how much you see, but how you see. Most of your images say “I got an A on this assignment” not “here’s my take on the world as a photographer”. Your images stand as individual shots, but don’t connect as a body of work.

A body of work is not made quickly. It develops as you continue to grow as a person. In the meantime, you do the best with what you have to show, which is why editing is so important.

If you want to be a commercial shooter, have a commercial site. If you want to be a fine art photographer, have a fine art site. They are not easily mixed. Many photographers have multiple sites.

Today’s world does not want to take the time to get to know someone. We want to make quick decisions and compartmentalize everyone after a few brief impressions. Your portfolio site must be designed with this in mind.

If you want to look like a pro, your email address should be at your website’s domain: ie yourname@yoursite.com, not yourname@yahoo.com.

Your name becomes your brand. So, your name should be a stylized as a logo. Use this logo on everything you send out. If you don’t have the money to pay a professional designer, work out a trade with one. The styling of your logo and the styling of your home page are as important as the handful of images on your home page.

Your home page should be a gallery of your best images. It should not be a catch-all of many different types images and the start of your blog.

Show the type of work that you want to do more of. Do not show work that you are not interested in doing again.

You said that you are a fan of Joe McNally. If you’ve never looked at his portfolio site, spend time there. It’s not the same as his blog.

Look at BrianSmithPhoto.com. Look at the many portfolio sites that can be found through WonderfulMachine.com. DO NOT spend a lot of time looking at your classmates’ sites.

Read every post written by APhotoEditor.com. Rob Haggart will continuously bring you new insights and resources about the larger world of editorial and advertising photography.

Check out the Super Premium blog and Creative Lube podcasts by marketing consultant Leslie Burns Dell’Acqua. Most commercial shooters spend more time marketing than they do shooting these days.

Read Magazine Death Pool. The reality is that the world is awash with images. There’s a huge revolution underway about how advertisers and news bureaus deliver images to us. Magazines and newspaper are dying. The Internet and devices like the iPhone and Kindle are the reason.

Plan for change and you won’t be disappointed. Understand that when you are where I’m at now, some 30 years beyond Brooks, the world of photography will be completely different. Darwin was right. If you want to survive, you must continue to evolve.

Learn to shoot and produce multimedia / motion. Still photography will be around for a long time, but the growth opportunities are in motion.

Spend a ton of time on ASMP’s site. It’s a great organization. If you want be a commercial shooter, get involved with ASMP-LA as a student. When you move away from Brooks, there will likely be another ASMP chapter in your area.

As for the fine art photography world, that’s a completely different universe. Start with Mary Virginia Swanson’s site. Get to know JP Caponigro. Head to PhotoLA next week and talk to the artists there about their journeys.

Brooks is a great school. But it is still just a school. The world and our industry are much larger. As I say in LIDLIPS, I’ve learned far more about photography outside of school than I did in school.

Thanks for getting in touch. That you took the initiative to do so, tells me loads. Keep going!

Syl

When I was a kid growing up in Phoenix, a trip to Legend City was second only to Disneyland in terms of excitement. Although that grand old amusement park has been a memory for more than 25 years, I’m still excited about my upcoming trip to Legend City. In less than two weeks, my Speedliter’s Intensive™ seminar tour will be launched in the new Legend City—one of Arizona’s largest photo studios.

Located near downtown Phoenix, Legend City is the perfect studio venue. The ceilings are high. There are thousands of square feet to play in. Both inside and out, the studio has a wide variety of surfaces—perfect for Speedlite demonstrations. There’s tons of free parking right at the door. There’s also a wide variety of places to eat within a couple minutes drive—hey, it’s Phoenix, nobody walks @;–).

Yes, that’s an Elinchrom Octa in the photo above. Ever wondered if you could drive a giant octa with a dozen Canon Speedlites? That’s one of the things I’ll demonstrate during the seminar.

So, if you’d like to immerse yourself in the world of Canon Speedliting and will be in Phoenix on Saturday, January 16, click here to register. (AMSP and PPA members save $25 with discount code from your local chapter—current membership card must be presented at door).

If you can’t make the Phoenix seminar, join the mailing list. I’ll be announcing 12-15 other cities and dates soon.

Click to join the ‘Speedliter’s Intensive’ Mailing List

About the Speedliter’s Intensive™ Seminar:

This one-day workshop focuses exclusively on Canon Speedlites. You’ll get the how-to and why-to specific to your Canon gear. It’s called ‘Intensive’ for a reason—a ton of information will be headed your way all day. In fact, there’s so much information to keep track of that every participant will receive the Speedliter’s Intensive™ Workbook—so you can go home with all the details. Regardless of whether you’re a novice with one Speedlite or an experienced shooter with many, this workshop will get your Speedlite technique to the next level.

Seminar topics include:

• The best uses for on- and off-camera Speedlites
• Deciding between Manual and E-TTL flash control
• Putting Flash Exposure Compensation to use
• Grip gear for Speedlites – from ultra-portable to ultra-sturdy
• On-flash modifiers: grids, snoots, diffusers, ringlight adapters, etc.
• Off-flash modifiers: umbrellas, softboxes, diffusion panels, reflectors, beauty dish, etc.
• Using your Speedlite’s bounce and zoom as a light modifier
• Corded solutions for moving your Speedlite off-camera
• Sorting out radio triggers: dumb vs. intelligent
• Setting up the 580EX/EXII as a wireless Master
• Setting up the 580EX/EXII and 430EX/EXII as wireless Slaves
• Organizing multiple Speedlites with Groups and Channels
• All the Syncs: High-speed, 1st-curtain, 2nd-curtain, Slow-speed
• Custom functions: optimizing your Speedlites
• Strategies for portrait lighting
• Strategies for product / food lighting
• Strategies for event / wedding photography
• Fill-flash techniques
• Using gels for color correction and dramatic effects
• Battery charging and storage
• One-, two-, three-Speedlite kits (and beyond!)
• Ganglight: the how and why of firing a large number of Speedlites together
• Strategies for using Speedlites with other brands of small flash
• Using Speedlites with studio lights

You’ll see a wide range of gear:

If you’re curious about whether a piece of Speedlite gear really works, the Speedliter’s Intensive™ is the place to come find out. I’ll be bringing my favorite gear from:

• Bogen / Avenger
• RadioPopper
• Honl
• Kacey
• Lasolite
• Flash Zebra
• and others.

Get your seat today!

The Speedliter’s Intensive Seminar is $150.

Tickets: Click here to get your seat right now.

Date: Saturday, January 16

Time: 8:30a—5:30p. Doors open at 8:00a.

Lunch: On your own at one of several nearby restaurants (or bring your own).

Location: Legend City Studios, 521 W Van Buren, Phoenix.

Also, Happy St. Sylvester’s Day. I hereby declare December 31 to be a feast day for all PixSylarians.

Denver Post: Year In Photos 2009 – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

Boston Globe: 2009 In Photos – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

The Australian: Our Best Pictures 2009

Wall Street Journal: 2009 Year In Photos

MSNBC: 2009 Year In Pictures

USA Today: 2009 Year In Pictures

India Today: Year In Pictures 2009

New York Times: 2009 Year In Pictures

Le Monde: Photos Of The Year 2009

Reuters: Pictures of the Year 2009 and Pictures of the Decade

South Africa News 24: Year In Pictures 2009

Time: Photos of the Year 2009