February 27, 2006
Aperture Improvements Coming Soon...
MacWorld is reporting that Aperture 1.1 will be available as a free upgrade in March to Apple's first foray into professional photography tools, and none too soon if you ask me. I preordered this, hoping for a saving grace to my 30k+ image library I currently keep in iPhoto. Well, on my Dual 2.5 G5 machine, Aperture 1.0 is continuously plagued by the spinning beachball of death. It's frankly unusable. 1.1 reportedly improves on speed, adds some new RAW controls, among what are called 'dozens' of improvements - including Intel native support. I look forward to trying this one out. But for now, iLife '06's improvements to iPhoto are rocking my world - things will need to get much better to justify a switch over to Aperture.
technorati tags: mac, apple, aperture, photography, intel
Posted by jetrotz at 06:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2006
An Update to the 20D
Canon has announced the upgrade to the EOS 20D - the 30D, of course. 
Comprehensive coverage available here at DPReview.com. After several years of life, the Canon EOS 20D will soon be replaced by this new model, the most notable new feature being a larger(2.5"), wider viewing angle LCD display. Most other aspects appear similar, although the new version does feature a more robust estimated shutter life (100k exposures). It also adds spot metering (a godsend for those Zone officiant's). It uses the same 5fps, 8.2 megapixel sensor of it's predecessor. While it's no 5D (what I really want), it does sound like it's a nice step up from my current version, the 10D. And the list price of $1399 certainly is easier to swallow than the $3k for the big-bad-full-frame-5D. There's some other good info here and here.
technorati tags: canon, EOS 30D, photography
Posted by jetrotz at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005
iPhoto Grows Up
It wasn't enough for Apple to surprise everyone with a Video iPod last week, a Windows-Media-Center-like iMac (interesting) and to begin offering network television broadcasts for download on the ITMS. Yesterday, in an event I wasn't even aware of in advance, Apple took the lid off minor resolution enhancements to the current crop of Powerbooks (yawn), announced a new Quad-Processor G5 (wow), and released a new application called Aperture. This is what I've been waiting for.
More after the jump.....
iPhoto has been my 'master library' for my images for a long time now. Ever since it began to support the format, I've shot RAW images. But iPhoto can lag, and while it has a great interface and feels like a Mac application, it just doesn't offer the kind of tools I needed. Enter Aperture. Apple describes it thusly:
Designed from the ground up for professional photographers, Aperture provides everything you need for after the shoot, delivering the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers.
Featuring a RAW-focused workflow, Aperture makes RAW as easy as JPEG, letting you import, edit, catalog, organize, retouch, publish, and archive your images more effectively and efficiently than ever before. From capture to output, you work directly with your RAW files, never having to first convert them into another format before viewing, adjusting, organizing, or printing them.
Apple also highlights SI Photographer Heinz Kluetmeier who I worked with in 1999 on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition 3-D shoot in Mexico. He gives it very high marks, and points out how helpful this applications becomes in sifting through large shoots - like the 1000 images he might typically capture at a football game.
The new app has some serious hardware requirements. Apple is suggesting a dual-2Ghz G5, but say it will run on a 1.25 Ghz Powerbook. But all that horsepower looks well worth it in this application, combining professional workflow, a truly Mac-like interface, and superb archiving tools. I can't wait to get my hands on this one.
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September 26, 2005
Bob Mould's US Tour Kicks Off
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August 29, 2005
Shave and a Haircut
So as my long time feline buddy Chaos ages, he has been less and less thorough with grooming himself. That job usually falls to Amy and I, but with the arrival of Sam we've had less time to help him with these tasks. That combination of events means a fair bit of matting for the old guy, so off he went to be shaved at the vet recently. He looks like a goofball/alien/creature with his new 'do - puffy around the head but stubbly everywhere else. You be the judge.
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August 22, 2005
Canon EOS 5D Is Alive
The Canon 5D was officially announced today. And it's a beauty - 12.8 megapixel, full-frame goodness at a cost of $3,299. Now that's not quite in the prosumer price range, but it's a heck of a lot closer than the 1D ($7k+). Anyway, this one has a 2.5" monitor, and captures bursts at 3 frames per second. Not gonna work for you sports shooters out there, but perfectly peachy for capturing pics of Sam at home and in the wild! Of course, maybe I'm more addicted than I realize to the 1.6x effect on my 80-200 - it does let me reach out and touch the animals at the zoo...
Link: Canon Makes it Official; Announces Full-Frame EOS 5D [DigitalCameraInfo]
Link: The Canon EOS 5D Is Real [Digital Photography Blog]
(Via Gizmodo.)
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August 09, 2005
Sam goes to Cooperstown
The extended Handelman family visited Cooperstown, NY in June, 2005 for a little get together. Attending were (obviously) the Handelmans as well as the Hogans, Sagans and Trotz family. Pics include time at the lake, a colonial-era farm, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (go Sox!), and a few pics of the family en masse. Enjoy! Contact joey dot trotz at turner dot com for access to more family photos.
Click here to see the gallery.
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Sam Photos - July 2005
I'm trying to catch up on all the photos I've taken but not posted for the last month or so. Here now are pictures showing Sam with a really cool 'do, as well as a few where he demonstrates his amazing ability to hold himself up during 'Tummy Time.' As you can see, he's developing into quite the cute little guy!
Link: Sam Photos - July 2005 Gallery is here.
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Bob Mould releases Body of Song
So thanks to a hat tip from my buddy Andy Mitchell, I just bought Bob Mould's new album off iTunes. Wow. The new disc harkens back before Modulate - all at once, I'm hearing the influence of Workbook, Sugar and Copper Blue, all rolled into one nice package. It's got an edge, but perspective at the same time. Good stuff. I shot the photo above for Bob several years back on the Modulate tour, and hope to see him again when he comes through Atlanta.
Link: Bob's got a blog now! Boblog is here.
Link: Here's the gallery of my pics from the Modulate tour.
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August 02, 2005
Flickr auto-finds coolest photos, related photos
Flickr has just released some new features organized around their the nature/relationships implied by user activity around the images on their site, an interesting expansion/improvement on their tagging structure.
Interestingness creates a daily page with the most 'Interesting' pics uploaded as defined by how favored the image is, how many comments exist for it, and how widely distributed the user interest happens to be. Very slick. The other new feature, Clustering, groups tags by concept. So the "cute cluster" gets broken in to "cute kittens," "cute puppies," "cute babies" and "cute smiles." Bush gets broken into 'protest president politics', 'green-flower-nature', 'grafitti-sticker-stencil', etc. The flickr blog discusses the new features. Very slick stuff.
(via BoingBoing.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2005
The Great Flickr Tools Collection
(Via Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)
Night Moves
Thomas Hawk makes note of this blog dedicated to night photography on Flickr. Check out the Nighthawks - Night Photography blog. Below is an a photo I shot at a country fair in Hinesville, GA in the early 90s. I loved the way a longish exposure at post-sunset dusk could bring out these wonderful purple-to-pink colors in the sky.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:56 AM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2005
Happy Sam
I woke up late to find Amy and Sam having some quality happy time on the couch. Sam was giggling, cooing and generally having a grand old time. We just love that smile he gives when he's gassy happy. Check out the gallery here.
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June 06, 2005
Sam on the Road
Well, not literally. But now Amy and I have a real understanding of military planning, logistics and supply lines. We packed the Rover full of gear to take Sam on his first road trip, down I-16/I-75 to Savannah on Memorial Day weekend. Grandma and Uncle Jerry enjoyed him immensely! See the photo gallery here.
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April 07, 2005
Apartment Fire
Sadly, Amy and I were woken just after 4 a.m. today with the blaring of sirens down our street. Amy, 41 weeks pregnant as of today, wasn't sleeping so well in any case. My old journalistic nose kicked in, literally, as I could smell smoke from the nearby apartments. One unit appeared to be a total loss on the upper floor. Hopefully, everyone got out. I headed down the street to see what was up, and take a few photos. No news on injuries yet, but all the area TV stations arrived as I was leaving. It's really amazing to me that it's been seven years since I chased this type of news for a living. I love my job today - but sometimes miss the street.
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April 05, 2005
Masters in 3D
Although the snow mass has not even begun to melt over some areas of the Northeast, the annual Masters golf tournament begins this Thursday. The Augusta National Golf Course opened it's gates early Monday morning to those holding one of the hardest tickets in sport - Masters 'badges'. See - they are so hard to get they don't even call them tickets! Anyway, my old newspaper buddies in Augusta at The Augusta Chronicle lifted a page out of the 2000 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and have published a collection of 3-D photos from the 2004 tournament. You'll have to find your own red/blue glasses, but the effects are pretty interesting.
Photo by Michael Holahan/Augusta Chronicle
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March 20, 2005
Yahoo! picks up Flickr
Flickr, that bastion of open source, creative commons, you show me yours I'll show you mine photo service has been acquired by Yahoo! Rumoured to be on the trading block for a while, parent company Ludicorp confirmed the deal today. Flickr's own blog put it this way:
Flickr will be continuing on the path it's on -- to Flickr 1.0 and beyond. We'll be working with a bunch of people that Totally Get Flickr and want to preserve the community and the flavor of what is here. We're going to grow and change, but we're in it for the long haul, with the same management and same team.I sure hope so. This site has a great concept, and should do well for a long time to come.
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March 16, 2005
Anderson Cooper by Diane Arbus
As featured in last Friday's New York Times (free registration required), there is a new retrospective of Diane Arbus' spooky photography currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum after touring several other US cities. Baby-rearing blog DaddyTypes points out a centerpiece of that collection is a portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt's infant son, Anderson Cooper. Yes, CNN's own Anderson Cooper.
The portrait, shot for Harper's Bazaar, is described in Patricia Bosworth's Arbus biography:
"To dispel the growing myth that [Arbus] only took pictures of freaks, she made up a list of elegant people she wanted to photograph...As if to prove her point, she took a remarkable portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt's sleeping baby son, Anderson Hays Cooper, for a Harper's Bazaar Valentine issue. In this truly astonishing picture, the infant resembles a flat white death's head -- eyes sealed shut, moth pursed and moist with saliva. When Gloria Vanderbilt saw the photograph, she forbade Bazaar to publish it, but eventually she changed her mind and this stunning image opened Diane's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1972."A current photo of Mr. Cooper can be found here.
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February 07, 2005
How-To: Converting Color to Rich B&W
This is a how-to guide for those of us who spend time converting color images in Photoshop to black and white. Simply selecting grayscale leaves a fairly flat insipid black and white image. This process, as detailed on Design by Fire, is much like a system we used to use back in the mid-90s as espoused by experts in digital imaging at The Associated Press. Anyway, it's a good way to do this. Check it out.
Posted by jetrotz at 06:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 04, 2005
iPod Stereogram
Now this is a really old technique brought way into the 21st century. In the 1800s, photographers travelled the world creating 'stereograms,' pairs of photos mounted on card-stock which appeared three-dimensional when observed through a special viewer. These cards and viewers are quite collectible, and some photographers (like my brother) are enjoying the ease that digital photography provides the steroscopic process. But this guy takes it a step further. No printing required here - just mount your iPod Photos as shown in his diagram, and voila!
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January 07, 2005
Camera Mail
Here's an interesting take which seems inspired by Wired's 'Rants & Raves' feature. This guy has a project where he sends a disposable camera with attached instructions for the postal workers to take photos. The results are interesting.
Images, details here.
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January 06, 2005
NPPA Announces Photoblog Category for Annual Contest
The National Press Photographers Association has announced a new category in their annual photography contest 'to recognize the best work being produced by publicly accessible journalism web sites.' Rules are here. Last year's winners are all online here, including an environmental picture story reporting on the impact of the Blue Ridge Parkway by photographer Josh Meltzer who works with my friend Natalee Waters in Roanoke, VA. This includes not only sites affiliated with traditional journalism outlets but also independent journalism sites. The NPPA contest has represented the very best of newspaper and magazine photography for years, so this really represents a watermark moment by this type of organization recognizing the value and quality of independent photoblogging. Now, I have to look long and hard to see if something in my gallery might be worthwhile...
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January 04, 2005
Not That Tsunami
Photo editors have a job to do. Part of that job is to make sure of the sources of the images they publish, especially gigantical, four-column monstrosities like the one in the Calgary Herald. Great image, illustrates the story well. Trouble is, this photo is from a tsunami that hit China a few years back. It's easily found on the web via a google search. Turns out this is a two-year-old Reuters photo of a group of people who gathered to watch some large waves, and one turned out to be larger than expected. The mayor of Calgary had the image and showed it during a presentation for tsunami aid, and the Herald asked for the image, assuming that it was a current image. Ooops. Link to apology here.
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January 03, 2005
New Year's 2005 QTVRs
Better late than never. Here's a link to a grand collection of Quicktime VR's from around the world on New Year's Eve. Sorry, none from my in-laws living room in Sarasota playing Cadoo with our 5 and 8 year old nephews.
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December 20, 2004
Grass Photography
Okay, this is whacked. Photographs printed on grass. No, it does not involve tiny hedge clippers, nor a robotic lawn mower. Taking advantage of 'the light sensitivity of seedling grass and its ability to record complex photographic images,' these artists are creating site installations of photos captured on grass seedlings. These are serious artists - their work is, for example, on display at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
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December 02, 2004
Up, Up and Away!
When I was a kid, I always wanted to get an RC plane. They were always a bit too pricey, so that never worked out. But they have always held a fascination to me, from the time my older brother had a huge glider when I was a tyke. I recall lusting after an Estes model rocket with a 110 camera in the nose when I fooled around with those in Cub Scouts, but these guys have taken all that to the next level (example photo by Kyle Goetzelmann above). Via Gizmodo, here is a link to the 2005 calendar photo entries from a group of serious RC enthusiasts. LINK
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December 01, 2004
DIY iPod Ads
So, you like the iPod ads. Clean, simple, distinctive. How about rolling some of your own? I havent' had time to try this myself yet, but Photoshopsupport.com has posted a how-to tutorial to make your image look like the archetypal iPod ads. I'll have to give it a spin and let you know how it works out.
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November 29, 2004
Parade QTVR
Ah technology. Panoramic QuicktimeVR of Spongebob at the annual Macy's parade (via BoingBoing). This is a welcome way to experience Spongebob Squarepants in all his 3-story-tall glory! I've always been a fan of QTVR, ranging from my own work at several Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue shoots (which I'd link to if SI.com hadn't moved these behind their subscription wall) and of the Augusta National Golf Club. The VR is from NYC POV - a great site with many interesting NYC panos to check out.
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November 30, 2003
Gallery: First trip to Highlands, NC
Amy and Joey headed to Highlands, NC for a great Fall trip to see the leaves, do some hiking, and rack up a slew of great Geocaching finds. We've loved the great mixture of fine dining (and wine lists!) along with the beautiful foliage so much, we've returned every year since then. Click here to see the photos.
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November 13, 2003
Wedding Album - The Early Version
 | While we sift through the other wedding photos, here are some of the best of the digital wedding weekend pics taken by Joseph Aczel, Jerry Harris, Scott Sagan and Joey Trotz. A completely edited version of this should be available soon. Click here to view! |
Posted by jetrotz at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2002
Gallery: Isla Mujeres
Joey and Amy headed South of the Border (no, not that one) for our first vacation together in May of 2002. We picked the quiet island off of Cancun known as 'Isla Mujeres' or 'Island of Women.' I was strictly limited to the one, but that wasn't a problem. Click here for page one, here for page two, or here for the underwater pics.
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May 15, 2002
Marty's 70th
Sherrie took Marty by surprise in May, 2002 with a surprise 70th birthday party. He was clueless! This was also the first time Amy brought Joey home to meet the entirety of the Handelman clan. Obviously, Joey survived. Click here for the gallery. It's clear that the Handelmans know how to have a great party.
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March 27, 2002
Bob Mould: Modulate
Bob Mould brought the second night of his Modulate tour to Atlanta's Variety Playhouse in March, 2002. I shot the show at Bob's request, and one of the images was used with an interview/show preview in New York Magazine later that year. Click here to see the photos.
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March 09, 2002
I belong in the Zoo
Amy and I had a zoo date at Zoo Atlanta a few months after we began dating. I had just received my Canon 80-200L f/2.8 AF-IS lens, and took advantage of some very cooperative subjects. A few of these photos now hang on the walls of our home only blocks from the Zoo! Click on the image or here to see the gallery.
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