dekeBlog

Despite his mismatched socks, we still trust this week's guest, photographer and author Ben Long, to be our resident expert on travel and photography, and doing the two well together. In the time I've known him, Ben has taught photography in Florence, been on assignment in Africa, and ridden his motorcycle numerous times across the Great American Southwest. I think Deke actually met him on a cruise ship. The guy is everywhere. This week's show is full of terrific tips for shooting on the road---whether you're just driving up the road to your favorite watering hole, hiking out in the wilderness, or traveling to exotic lands in search of interesting local beverages.

Here are the key areas to think about next time you're headed out on the open road: Read more » 

No we didn't overindulge on cocktails to the point of spilling our darkest secrets on air (which would probably be way more boring than it sounds), rather we spent this week's Martini Hour talking about sharing photos with two of our photographer friends, Ben Long and Mikkel Aaland.

Oh, sure, "sharing" has a bit of a group-hug vibe about it (and of course we did plenty of that), but it's really the best catch-all word we could come up with to describe that last phase of the digital workflow---actually getting your work off the computer and out where others can see them. And this week's conversation is about the myriad ways you have at your disposal these days for letting your images go out into the world---whether the purpose be making people happy, communicating your important message, or bringing home truckloads of cash (yes, Deke added that last one...twice). 

Here's what we have to share this week: Read more » 

We're joined this week by our good friend Mikkel Aaland, who, as Martini Hour Faithful know, was there at the inception of the original, offline Martini Hour. But in addition to his going olive-for-olive with me and Deke in Las Vegas, Mikkel has also authored two amazingly beautiful Lightroom books. And it's a great time to talk about Lightroom, because the beta of Lightroom 3 is currently available for download at Adobe Labs. So after you're done enjoying this show, you can go check it out for yourself. Because we imagine it's much more interesting for you to listen to us be loungy fools, then go try the products we talk about for yourself!

Here's more raw data from this week's show: Read more » 

Ah, it feels so good. Tonight I finished recording the last of my Photoshop Top 40 podcasts, produced in association with my beloved video publisher, lynda.com. And while the most recent ones won't go live for months, I wanted you to have a sense for what's coming. The final two episodes, Features #1 and #2 (more than that I cannot tell you) feature the transformation of this image by Jason Stitt over at stock image vendor extraordinaire Fotolia . . .

into a full-blown Na'vi teen yearbook picture, a la the obscure art-house flick Avatar.

Click the image above for high-res. (I can't give you a high-res of the base photo; it's a commercial image for sale at a very reasonable price.) Read more » 

Tonight I was driving back from lynda.com to Room 101 at my beloved Blue Iguana after a long but uneventful evening of recording the final Photoshop Top 40 videos. And I had an epiphany. We needed a Thursday post. (Colleen and I got confused and posted Martini Hour on Wednesday--I can't believe none of you noticed!) So I thought I'd put pen to screen and see what you think:

Imagine you die and not only do you get to be reincarnated, but you also get to choose who and when. I would come back as a Plains Indian in the 16th century, before the Train Demons came with their superior technology.

I don't actually know much about the Plains People. According to my dim recollection of "Dances with Wolves," their ranks included a cross-dresser, so they must have been an open-minded race. Better, they had a ready and reliable food source: bison. Here's my off-the-wall (ha!) rendering of me as a bison hunter.

(Click the image for high-res with narrative. The original photo is #419301 from Jean-Michel Alibaud over at Fotolia.) Read more »