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Monday, July 16, 2012

Behind the Photos - July 2012


I think it would be appropriate to occasionally post about my photo gear, given the subject matter of this blog. Here is a photo of ironically low quality, taken with my laptop's webcam, of the gear that creates the photos on this site:


In the front is the Nikon D90, and the lenses from left to right are: Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G, Nikon 70-300mm f4-5.6G,  and a Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6EX. None of these pieces of equipment are really top-of-the-line, but they cover everything that most hobbyists such as myself could want or need. Prior to purchasing this used D90 body last spring, I used a Nikon D50 for about five years. The lens I use the most is the 50mm, which is one of the cheapest Nikon lenses but also one of the best when measured by quality vs. dollars spent. The Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens, my newest lens, also gets a lot of use for photographing street scenes and buildings. I think in the next installment of "Behind the Photos" I will go into more detail about one of my lenses or perhaps on my post-processing techniques.

This post is also a good place to share some of the places where my photography has been spotted. Between selling photos, letting people or companies use them for free, or discovering that business or websites are using my photography without credit or compensation, you might have seen one or two of my photos in random places. Here are a few recent examples (the photos in these examples were sold or used with my permission unless otherwise noted):

On the back inside cover of the 2012-13 Portland Buy Local Guide in an ad for Casco Bay Eyecare, Portland's leader in eyecare and eyewear since 1998. 

I have had many photos on the Gr8PortlandME website (there's another one of mine up now) and on their Facebook page

Occupy Maine photo on The Maddow Blog on MSNBC.com. This was not authorized, but I would have let them use the photo if my watermark wasn't cut off and the photo was credited. 
I spotted this one randomly at a convenience store.  Since this appears to be a poster for a small non-profit organization, I would have provided a full resolution copy of the image for free.


I occasionally get photos on the front page of The Consumerist, a subsidiary of Consumer Reports, because I load my photos in their Flickr photo pool

Okay, that's all for now. I will have a few more screenshots of my work to share next month and in the meantime feel free to send me a heads up if you spot one of my photographs somewhere random.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this! I love what you've done at the wide end in many of your photos and while I know the most important piece of equipment is your brain, I was also curious which wide-angle lens you used.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Xach. I wanted a "super wide angle" lens for a long time and did a lot of research before ending up with this one. There are so many options and so many user-reviews of lenses online that it was a daunting decision. But for what it's worth I've been impressed by it's quality and it's definitely fun to shoot with.

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  2. Hi there- I for one would love to learn about your post-processing techniques. This is something I struggle with, so I hope to learn a trick or two from you. Thanks!

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