A while back I acquired what I consider to be one of the coolest cameras available, a very early Rolleiflex SL66. I’ve only shot a couple rolls through it, and excited to finally own one.

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3115/3174903015_b12a0dffc8.jpg" alt="organizing slides&quot

; width="450" height="300"

/>

If you are selecting photography for use in your business marketing efforts, either from stock images or originals, there are a few things to keep in mind. First and foremost, you want to choose a photograph or image that is going to compliment your company’s style guidelines or project design style. In addition, color palette, symmetry and balance are principles that will help you choose an image that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional for your layouts.

Read more →

This collection contains 26 Color and Black & White (RGB/3400 x 2300) high-res royalty free images for use. Photographed and styled to have a classic film feel, these sky images are great to use for your backgrounds or textures.

Please share this post!

DOWNLOAD ME (ZIP FILE 168mb)

Dropped this image from 352kb to 86kb...not bad

I recall a user on Reddit mentioning a small application called ImageAlpha a few weeks back. It was the first I have heard of this software so I thought I would give it a whirl. If it’s new to you too…basically it can dramatically reduce the size of your png files. Hey all of us (at least the web geeks) could use this on our site designs. I was curious how much space I could save so I took a larger version of the image above which was 2285 x 2300 RGB photoshop image and did a little comparison.

Here are my results:

ImageAlpha is a standalone application, so it adds an additional step to your production process. Too bad it’s not available as a Photoshop plug-in that is accessable through the “save for web” window.

Anybody else have experience with this software?

About the author:

Chip Allen is an award winning Architectural & Fine Art Photographer based out of Sacramento, CA. He is available for assignments all over Northern California and Nevada.

Please visit his architectural site here: www.chipallenphotography.com

Read more →

Many took notice of the 5/20/2012 eclipse. There are some really great photos of by amateurs and pros alike floating around the web. In my opinion were the images of the eclipse projected on to walls of houses and buildings.

via Instagram - user: kcvsf8

What we are actually seeing projected onto the walls are dozens or hundreds of images of the sun itself. The the areas in the trees and leaves that allow light to pass through create nature’s very own pinholes. These pinholes focus the light that is passing though the leaves enough for the images of the sun to visible and recognizable.

Though this happens all the time, we are accustom to it and think nothing of the little blobs of light. But when a large object passes infront of the sun we get to see the crescent of the sun as illustrated in these photos.

via Instagram - user: smartboydesigns

projected onto our garage

I discovered customink.com the other day and decided to give them a shot at printing a t-shirt for me. For those of you not familiar with CustomInk…in a nutshell they print low minimum runs of promotional products such as t-shirts (obviously), hats, mugs, bags, etc…check out their site.

I ended up just purchasing one shirt and it cost me about $25 with shipping. There are less expensive places out there, but I read good things about this company so I decided to spend the extra few bucks.

As for the design. In middle school and high school I use to find tons of cool shirts in small record shops, many of them promoting old punk bands. More often than not the shirts would be printed in just single and maybe 2 colors. I’m assuming because it was cheap and easy to do for bands to print and produce. So I thought it would be fun to go for this same look. I decided resurrected an old pinhole photo I used for a promotional poster we used a while back. The contrasty image has an old 70′s punk/rock-n-roll feel, which I thought would work great to have printed on a black shirt.

Overall, I’m pretty darn happy with the quality of the shirt, printing, the customer service and ordering process with CustomInk. They are worth giving a shot, if you want to print a shirt or two for fun.

I loaded up my behemoth of a camera and headed for San Francisco to get a shot of the Golden Gate. I’ve been wanting this shot for a while, so I decided this weekend would be as good as any. Traffic was heavy and it took nearly three and a half hours to get into the city. I figured it would be about the same to get back home. So I was a little concerned when I finally got to the bridge and it was full overcast and I only had one piece of paper to shoot onto.

Typically my exposure time with this camera is 6.5 minutes in full sun. I’ve never attempted to shoot in overcast so it was pretty much a big guess. I found a sturdy group of rocks to rest the camera on and ended up doubling the time to 13 minutes since it was a little later in the afternoon and there was so little light.

Once I got home I dropped the paper in the developer and was relieved to find my exposure was good. Quite honestly I was happy “anything” came out on the negative after an entire day of driving for one picture. But I guess that’s what makes this type of photography so fun.

Final Print:

F/300ish
Timespan: 4:43pm – 4:55pm = 13 minutes
Paper: Ilford RC Matte
Contact Print: 70 seconds w/ bare 15 watt bulb

My 16x20 Pinhole Camera

Camera Placement:

Well for me anyway. For the past few years I’ve been shooting with a hand-built 16×20, paper negative camera. For a single exposure it takes about 6 minutes worth of sunlight (at high noon). So the longer days and extra light, definitely add a helping hand. To learn more about pinhole photography visit F295.org

f-290-something, 6.5 minute exposure, paper negative

My 16x20 Pinhole Camera