Photo Sets--What Type of Photography Does a Hotel Buy?

Building reflections are a popular hotel photography theme

Building reflections with squares and lights

Building with beautiful clouds reflecting on it

Building reflection with compelling clouds

Reflection of classic building on a modern building

Reflection of brown building on glass building

Reflection of one modern building on another

Photo sets are more important than ever. With photography being so hot these days, hotels are slapping it on walls all over the world. It's simple and chic, characteristics of the hotels wanting to sell themselves as hipster boutique. So, what type of photography does a hotel buy?

Two requirements for the photography you want to sell to hotels and/or restaurants:

1. A set of photographs with a related theme.

Photos have to be similar to one another in a number of ways. The more focused the theme, the better the set. 

2.  Photos need to be sharp at 100 percent resolution with no noise or sensor spots.

Cleaning up your photos in Photoshop is an absolute must! Any spot seen by the buyer is a deal that's bound to be broken. 

Last month, I traveled to a hotel where the theme was building reflections. When I saw the photos, I realized I could do the same set just as good as the ones I saw, if not better.

I posted the building reflections that I've shot around the world on Facebook and am now writing about them on this blog.

Lesson to be Learned: Check out the hotels to see what's up on the walls. You might have a similar set of images with a related theme. If you do, you're all set to put your work out there after a little postprocessing.

Overprocessed HDR

Overprocessed HDR occurs most often when you opt for the Grunge mode

HDR photography ranges from very realistic photos where the shadows and highlights keep more of their detail thorough subtle juxtapositions of a number of photos, each taken at different exposures.

When HDR photos are merged automatically with a few mouse clicks in Photoshop or Photomatix, it can look like a miracle has been created--bountiful color, multiple-dimensions and stark contrast seemingly sparkle within the frame. But some feel that the resulting photo is overprocessed, no matter how good it looks.

Many photographers and others in the business feel that HDR is simply overprocessing photographs, costing the medium its integrity, producing fake-looking images that are to a traditional photograph as a plastic cup is to a wine glass.

Now it's time for you to decide by casting a vote below:

Does HDR processing compromise the stature of photography as art?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls

POD Websites--Are they Worth the Effort?

Fine Art America is a POD website

All the rage in the art world these days are POD websites, websites that take your uploaded photos and sell them on your behalf online. POD means Print on Demand, which is a process whereby the staff at the website does everything for you in order to sell the photographs you upload. The POD websites display your photo, and, if a customer orders it, prints it and sends it to the him/her. The POD websites can send your uploaded framed, strapped on canvas, glued to poster board, and/or a number of other ways for it to be hung on the wall inside the customer's home.

There are a number of what are called POD websites in which you can sell your photographs without you doing anything but uploading them: fineartamerica.com, artistrising.com, imagekind.com and deviantart.com to name a few.

POD websites almost sound like magic, seemingly selling your photos after you have taken and processed them. But there's more to it than that--the process of marketing your work, perhaps the most challenging task of any photographer from one who sells his work in a gallery or at a POD website.

Today the competition for a photographer at POD websites is daunting.Thousands of photographers sell millions of photos online, which means that your photo has to be not only compelling, but also different from the rest.

Consider how you can create photography that is both unique and that someone would want to hang on a wall in their home or business. If you find that perfect niche, one that is contemporary and addresses the greatest number of people possible, you can and will sell lots of photos.

Education Reform Thrives in Ras Al Khaimah

Creating an education system that encourages students to read is at the core of the education initiatives envisioned by His Highness Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, ruler of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sheikh Saud believes that the UAE must recognize the important role education plays in the economic development and growth of the country. Empowering People with Knowledge The Ras Al Khaimah Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research, a quasi-governmental organization founded in 2009, is at the forefront of the education reforms envisioned by Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi. Calling education reform the empowering of the nation’s people with knowledge, Sheikh Saud has spearheaded an education initiative that begins with improving the quality of teaching through mentoring and monitoring teachers. Working with the Ras Al Khaimah Education Zone, the Al Qasimi Foundation is also helping to access English language instructors in RAK schools. The goal of this research is to identify and address any gaps or deficiencies. Investing in Education To further education reforms, His Highness supports investing in education institutions, including private universities in Ras Al Khaimah such as the American University and the RAK Medical and Health Sciences University. The goal of this initiative is to give everyone in the emirate the opportunity to pursue an education. In a nation where literacy is already near 100 percent, the education reforms demonstrate the commitment of the government to improve upon the education opportunities already available to residents. Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi referred to the Higher Colleges of Technology and its limited course offerings to illustrate the need for other colleges and universities to offer students a broader range of choices. Focusing Attention on Reading Teachers in RAK’s government schools report a lack of student interest in reading. At least one teacher attributed this to social activities such as cell phones and video games drawing students away from libraries. Because the foundation considers strong reading skills essential to creating independent thinkers, reading-related programs are central to the proposed education reforms. His Highness is advocating a program to elevate reading scores not just for the benefit of his emirate and its students but also for the benefit of the entire country. Partnering with the Private Sector Education reform in Ras Al Khaimah includes private companies as well as traditional universities and academic institutions. An example was the RAK government venture with Core Education, a company from India, and Birla Institute of Technology. The venture has led to new courses for students in engineering, architecture and business. What’s more, Core Education has agreed to institute an MBA program in RAK. Taking Education into the Future Sheikh Saud has taken the first step toward education reform with the creation of a university council in RAK. The council will help education facilities plan and execute strategies to raise standards and improve education in the emirate. By working together, institutions of education and quasi-government agencies such as the Al Qasimi Foundation hope to establish minimum standards for education and innovative opportunities for students.

$ 40.00

Atlantic City Boardwalk before Hurricane Sandy in HDR

Sony DSC-HX200V 18.2MP Digital Camera with 30x Optical Zoom - Black - Long Zoom Cameras (Google Affiliate Ad)

Atlantic City before Hurricane Sandy in HDR

Last October Hurricane Sandy struck with vengeance, wiping out the much of the famed boardwalk.

Here is Atlantic City as it stood in the September before the hurricane. Top winds that hit the resort city were 77 mph, but that's not what did the most damage. Sandy's storm surge did.

The hurricane was a freak occurance in that it moved in from the east, which is the direction that produces the largest  storm just north of the hurricane (think of storm spinning counter-clockwise, causing strong easterly winds push water inland north of the hurricane).

The Northeast had not ever recorded a westward-moving hurricane moving into the area. Usually hurricanes move north-northeast quite a distance off the coast, missing the Northeast megalopolis, so this could have been a first-ever event. Records only go back to the end of the nineteenth century.

You can probably expect that a repeat of this event isn't likely to happen for a  long, long time, climatologically speaking...but one never knows with global warming changing the earth and its atmosphere at a meteoric pace.

10 Things to Maybe Expect from a Canon 70D

Canon 70D

Coming in June is the Canon 70D, which is to cost about $1200, a bit pricier than the XSi and similar cameras.

These cameras are adding so many non-photography features that they're sounding more and more like hand-held devices, with many of the same features, but instead of being options on a small smart phone, they're added to a bulky dSLR camera.



 Here's what you can expect from a Camera 70D (all based on rumors from American websites):

1. 21 or 24 MP sensor
2. APS-C sensor
3. WiFi
4. GPS
5. Weathersealed

Information is scarce on this camera, even though some early announcements were made that the camera will make it to market before June. These were rumored but never happened. June is next month and still nothing has been released.

The Italian website PAUSCaffe reports the following specs:

6.  that the sensor will be only 18 MP.
7. a burst speed of 6.5 frames/second
8. 3.2-inch LCD display
9. touch screen display
10. DIGIC 6 processor

Other Camera Reviews
Canon T6i
Nikon D600
Nikon S800c
Sony RX100

What a Difference a Day Makes--Sleeping on Your Art Work

Marilyn before with a red cast throughout the frame

In art, what a difference a day makes. Sleeping on your art work enables you to get up the following day refreshed so that you can look at your work in an entirely different way than you had the day before.

As a writing professor, I tell students not to submit their work the day they write it. It's just a bad practice because after a certain point, the more they look at it, the greater chance they'll miss errors, even obvious ones such as using the same word twice and/or using the wrong word like to instead of too.

As an artist--whether a photographer removing extraneous spots from an image before he/she puts it for sale online or a digital artist who's forgotten to colorize a portion of his/her piece--you'll see more of your work if you take a rest from it.

In the picture of Marilyn, a photograph I took in Palm Springs of the monument "Forever Marilyn" I went to bed thinking I was finished with the piece.

I  got up the next morning only to find I had missed applying the sponge tool to a portion of the background so that there remained a deep red cast in some parts of it.

When I got back to working on the photo, I also found those pesky sensor dust marks throughout the frame. Had I put that up on a stock or art photography website, no one would have bought it because of the undesirable red cast and because of the extraneous gray marks.

The image below is how it turned out after I finished working on it the next morning.

Marlyn tweaked after a good night's rest

Colorization--Metro Sign in Paris

Metro station in Paris

The Metro signs in Paris are lovely to be sure. You can tweak a sign so that it stands out by making everything in the image black and white, leaving only the text in color. This process is known as colorization, even though in digital art is done subtractively. You're not adding color, you're taking it away.

This isn't to say that you can't colorize a black and white photo because you can. This type of colorization is a bit tougher process, but if you watch the colorization video, you'll find out it's easier than you think because of the overlay coloring option.

In the above image, I took a shortcut (no layers) in creating the color in the sign (or taking out the black and white). I used the Sponge Tool, which has an option to desaturate. Then, I selected the text of the sign and inversed it (Select>Inverse). The rest was easy. I colored in the entire frame with the soft brush, taking away all of the color around the sign.

Easy stuff.

marilyn monroe prints

Ten Whispers about Canon's T6i

Canon SL1 smallest and lightest dSLR camera ever

The fact that the T5ihas just come out in March 2013 and that it's almost identical to the Canon T4iand the lightest, smallest Canon camera, the SL1 has also made it debut is causing heated speculation about what comes next with a Canon T6i, due out next year.

All of these are in addition to Canon's new mirrorless EOS M, considered rather amateurish because there's no mode dial (Imagine that!) and a focusing speed that is sluggish at best.

So many models...so little time.

Knowing all of this, one has to speculate what Canon going to do with its next camera model, the T6i.

1. Canon won't make this camera

2. mirrorless (maybe)

3. new sensor

4. smaller body

5. better video capability

6. 18-135mm IS STM (good for video) Lens Kit

7. 20 or more MP

8. last of the Txi series

9. better weatherproofing

10. the usual Canon is on its way out (which has never been the case)

Whatever Canon comes up with is surely to disappoint reviewers despite that the company remains one of the most successful in the digital camera market.

Getty Villa in Malibu Modeled after Southern Italian Country House

Getty Malibu in HDR

During the 1950s John Paul Getty imagained a museum to provide an ideal context in which
to recreate the Villa Papyri, a large country house that was built around 79 AD.
It has been speculated that the father-in-law of Julius Caesar lived there.

The Getty Villa, modeled after the Villa Papyri, is located in Malibu, California. The grounds were set up from a map that had been created to aid in excavation efforts of the original archeological site in southern Italy. As of today, that original villa's excavation has not been completed, but the map had been made as a guide to complete uncovering it.

In 1960s Getty owned a villa in the Bay of Naples. The oil magnate bought his first art piece in 1939 at an auction. From then to the 1970s, Getty continued collecting antiquities, mostly bought at high-end auctions.

In order to both house the collection and make it public, Getty had a ranch house built, which still remains on the Malibu property today. Getty's collection quickly outgrew the space he had for it in the ranch house, hence the Getty Villa was constructed.

At the time, Getty lived in England, overseeing the project from there with the assistance of a member of his staff who frequently traveled between London and LA. Getty died in 1976, never seeing the Villa.

The Villa opened in 1974. The collections grew along with the Getty Trust, an organization which hosts many preservation and educational programs.

In 1997, the building closed for renovation. Floors were redesigned and natural light was manipulated within the hallways and galleries to enhance the antiquities that are displayed.

When visiting the Getty Villa, you'll find yourself moving frequently between the indoors and out, so as to take advantage of the almost-perfect Malibu weather during your visit.

Getty imagined, that you, the visitor, would be a Roman walking around the Villa during the time before it had been destroyed by a fire,  so that you have the experience and same feeling Romans had way back when.

Getty Villa is daily (except Tuesday) from 10 am to 5 pm.

signs canvas prints