Excuse the grammar above…

I have stayed pretty busy here lately with several projects, but no matter how busy it gets, I do my best to find time (found usually early in the mornings when I wake up) to do a little reading on the blogosphere for information pertaining to, challenging, encouraging, and/or making fun of this industry we call photography!

I am a big fan of blogs, and I really appreciate those folks that can write with applicability and wit. The problem is, there is so many stinking blogs out there, which ones are the best for this, and which one is the best for that, and who do I go to learn this technique, and who is the expert on marketing my brand new photo calendar I decided to put together on MPIX, etc…? This issue is probably the upside to the problem itself. There are many great people (not all photographers) providing great, useful material in their blogs.

I recommend finding blogs that indeed provide some sort of utility to you, whether it be through learning technique, reading industry news, discussing the philosophy of the art and/or business of photography, or the many other aspects of your profession or hobby that might attract you to the blogs. To throw some out there, I’ve provided five blogs that I could not start my day without reading (or at least seeing what the post title is, ha):

1. Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider: www.scottkelby.com I ran into a guy the other day that is a fairly frequent hobbyist shooter who stays up-to-date with specific technologies, i.e. the Internet, and I was taken aback that he did not know who Scott Kelby was. Alas, I had to show him! Kelby is a super-mega resource for professionals and hobbyists alike. His blog, Photoshop Insider, covers an array of information pertaining to the industry, from product reviews, news, technique, etc., and the best thing about his blog is that you can expect at least one post a day, and if you see more than one a day, just know that it is a fairly uncommon event and he won’t keep hammering you with more posts than you can keep up with in one day! My favorite aspect of his blog is the Guest Blog Wednesday, a weekly installment in which he invites others from across the industry to compose a post from their perspective for Kelby’s readers.

Note that Kelby is not only a great blogger, but a great educator, hosting Kelby Training Online (check this out if you want instruction on just about anything photography and graphics), and he is the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

2. A Photo Editor: www.aphotoeditor.com Rob Haggart used to be the Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside Magazine. Haggart now is the creator of one of the go-to blogs for inside perspective on the editorial/photojournalism/magazine/news industry. His blog brings a healthy dose of reporting on creativity, art, and business inside a significant communication tool that many take for granted. And he’s not afraid to say it either! Whether he is offering links to photography grants or providing information on Annie Leibovitz’s financial issues relating to the well-being of her image archive, A Photo Editor is a straight-to-the-point blog with positive and REAL intentions that many blogs lack due to public relations. Period.

3. Chase Jarvis: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/ If you are a photographer and you go to Chase Jarvis’s blog and you come away from it feeling like you didn’t get anything out of the experience, then you didn’t read a single word on his blog. Like Kelby, Jarvis covers everything, and in detail! Jarvis is a master of social media, creating viral content, and coming up with useful information for his blog at just the right time. He melds the art of photography with other artistic endeavors, such as his Songs for Eating and Drinking series, and he is forever eager to place personal work on the blog as well, something he stresses to be just as important as professional work. In my opinion, the video section of his blog is a huge component to the blog’s accessibility to photographers.

4. Joe McNally: www.joemcnally.com/blog Joe McNally is Superman with portraits that call for lighting, in whatever shape or form it comes in, whether it be artificial or ambient, small or big flash, and if you check his blog out, you’ll see what I’m saying. Joe is an inspiration to many photographers using artificial lighting, and his blog does not let you down in this regard. He knows that’s his specialty, and he is willing to share! He is an excellent writer to boot, placing you in his shoes while documenting his shoots (yes, still a hard working photog). He is among many Nikonians that share their experiences through their blogs, and he does a heckuva job telling the story. Again, if you want to know how to really make something work with lights, or see a dissection of a huge shoot, point your browser McNally’s way.

5. A Picture’s Worth: http://blog.photoshelter.com/corp/ I’m a Photoshelter user (but, I’m not being paid to put their blog on my list). I’m trying to become a bigger player in the Photoshelter user category. Basically, I’m learning my way around it, and the folks there do a great job in educating shooters like me on how to get the most out of it. Another thing they do exceptionally well, like A Photo Editor, is present great content for the business/industry side of photography. Their blog exudes their passion of helping photographers, from students to professionals, to get the most out of their worlds! The blog is rather random, in a newsy style, but in the short time that I have been reading it, I have learned a great deal about how I approach my photography, from shooting, being creative, to marketing and staying active in social media. The blog is usable AND useful, something you might not get everywhere.

This is just a short list of blogs that I tend to keep up with, but I definitely check these daily. There are many other great blogs, as I have mentioned before. Others that I keep track of include David Hobby’s Strobist, Photofocus, Rob Galbraith DPI and PixelatedImage. I’m always checking links from all of these blogs to others, and I look for a blog from any photographer that I come across, in person or on the Web. This is one of the greatest ways we share information in this industry!

What are some of your favorite PhotoBLOGS?

The iPhone 3Gs has a new and improved camera, which Scott Bourne over at Photofocus praises highly. Now, I’m not as excited about the new camera, but it is a pretty slick device, and I can see why Mr. Bourne has a lot to say about it. It has autofocus, auto white balance, and auto exposure (well, the last one had that too), but the tap autofocus is an addition, and I’m sure avid iPhone camera users like Chase Jarvis will appreciate that. The video is another nice addition, shooting 30fps, 640X480 VGA. These are all pretty neat features, but it seems to me that they are just that for the industry. Now, I’m not saying their not useful. I take reference photographs all the time with my iPhone, and often come back to shoot them with my “big rig.” What I am saying is that they are really cool features, but I’ll be honest, I’m never going to use a 3-megapixel image to a submission to a magazine. I’ll put it on my Flickr (which needs updating in a bad way) and I’ll text it to friends, editors (for reference), but never as a serious submission. I’m not implying that that’s what Scott Bourne is saying, because he’s not, but there is quite a bit of hype going around online about the new features from some very big photogs, and I just don’t want folks to think that this is all they need. Make it a tool that you use to compliment your work, assist your work, push your work, and showcase your work.

I just think there are way more useful features of the phone for photogs out there, such as the tethered Internet surfing capabilities you can achieve with the iPhone 3Gs hooked up via bluetooth or USB to your computer. I know people have been talking about this for a long time, and I believe there to be some kind of hack out there to do this already (I’m not much in to “hacking” my equipment that I pay for with hard-earned money), but this is a great asset to the photography industry, and pretty much anyone in general. I can’t tell you how many times I have been going down the road needing to send some information that was on my computer, not my phone, via e-mail to an editor or client. Or, when I am somewhere where there is no Internet, and I don’t feel like browsing on a 3.5-inch screen.

Another great feature would be the copy/paste function, as well as the MMS support for photos and video. It seems to me that I am on a more mobile relationship with my editors and clients than I used to be, and it would be great to just text an editor a reference photograph from the iPhone and get some feedback. The copy/paste function has just been a long time coming, period. The compass is ideal in certain situations, and the extra storage is much needed. I never really thought I would fill up the 8GB given prior, but I did, and now I’m surprised that I even thought that in the first place.

What a great tool we do indeed have at our fingertips. Apple has done nothing but support this industry, and for those of you that know me, I praise Apple like crazy. I’m not as technical as others are, so I accept any bing in specs, any missing information for this software that will be updated in two days because of all the ranting and raving about why Apple did not put this in for me and the 22 other people that need it. I just know that it works for me, and I’ll keep on using it.

On another note, Joe McNally has a new Web site and blog, so go check it out and soak up his knowledge of being a photog for several decades for some of the top names in the communications industry!