Featured Professional: Jay Patel

Here are some great shots from master photographer Jay Patel. You can check out his work on his site. His work is pretty impressive and has an especially artistic touch. Take a look.



Also, please take a few minutes to complete this survey. Thanks!

Website: www.jaypatelphotography.com

All images © Jay Patel; used with permission.

Survey

I recently put together a short survey on photography and wanted to ask you, dear readers, to take a few minutes of your time to take it. I have run through it a few times and it should only take 5-7 minutes to complete. You can find it here.

I originally started this blog because I was spending a fair amount of time combing the internet for photography stuff and thought it would be nice to aggregate it in one place and make it easier for myself and others to access it. It may not have lived up to my ambitions yet, but it has been fun to do.

With this survey I hope to get a better idea of who visits my blog; what you shoot, what you shoot with, if you are a professional and if you ever hope to become one, etc. The survey is purely for my interest and I close it I will post the results so we can see who is visiting.

Thanks for visiting my blog and please take a few minutes to fill out the survey. I appreciate your help.

Photography survey link

I'm not sure I get this trend

Is this where cameras are going? Or is it just a niche product? It seems crazy that you would have to have a 3D TV or photo frame to even take advantage of what this camera can do. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Ansel Adams or not?

I just found out I have been missing out on the news about the recent Ansel Adams find. I saw it mentioned in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and found more in depth info in the LA Times here and here.

For those as ignorant as me, a gentleman named Rick Norsigian in California purchased some glass plate negatives from a garage sale ten years ago and someone put a bug in his ear that they might be Ansel Adams' originals. He has spent the better part of the past decade trying to authenticate them. Apparently he has had difficulty getting photography and history scholars to authenticate them for whatever reason, so he hired his own authenticators, none of whom are experts on Ansel Adams. He also had them appraised at $200 million. Now he is selling prints to the public from his website. You can check out the prints here.

I have to admit, I am skeptical about this for a lot of reasons. Everyone living who was close to Adams claims that the negatives are not his work. I am no expert, but I am an Adams fan and the images don't look like Adams' work to me. They look like black and white photos taken from standard Yosemite photo spots by a talented amateur. And, as it turns out, they may just be the work of a talented amateur. A woman in California has come forward, saying that the photos were taken by her uncle and she has prints that apparently match the negatives. Hopefully both her prints and Norsigian's negatives will be put into the hands of someone with some expertise in this area and it will all get sorted out.

I don't think that Mr. Norsigian is lying or trying to be dishonest about this. I suspect that he really believes they are Adams' work and also likes the idea of making some money off of them. Admitting that after all of this time and effort that they are not really Adam's work would be a crushing ego blow. But, if they are not in fact Adams', the world has a right to know.

One interesting side note: if people enjoy looking at the photos, does it really matter if Adams made them or not? Here is a link to the WSJ article that got me started on this and discusses that very subject.

Featured Professional: Tomas Kaspar

Really fantastic shots. Check more of his work out at tomaskaspar.com




Website: www.tomaskaspar.com

All images © Tomas Kaspar; used with permission.

Landscape Website

When it comes to nature and outdoor photography, I get just as much of a kick out of it looking at great images as I do trying to take them. I ran across a site today that has some of these great shots and is very simple. The site is called Landscapes 2.0. From what I gather, the site allows you to upload photos, which can then be voted on and the cream then rises to the top. Sort of like Digg, but for landscape photography. I like that there are none of the standard trappings, such as albums, groups, fans, etc, and I was amazed by many of the images. Some are a bit heavy on the tone mapping, but overall they are great shots. Check it out.