This weekend I started on my fall photography project. I spent a couple of hours walking around the local park and although there’s a hint of fall in the air, the leaves on most of the trees are still bright green and not quite ready for their close-up’s!
I spent a lot of time taking photos of reflections of houses, boats and plants as I walked along the stream that flows through the park. I’ve been using my Panasonic TZ10 almost exclusively the past few months so it took a while to get used to my Nikon D50 again. I also had to stick to the shade as I was out between noon and 2 pm which is probably the worst time of day to be taking photos!
Here are a couple of shots i’d like to share with you:
Boats reflected in the stream
Paddle boats in the park
I’ve also found another blog i’d like to share with you, it’s called The Digtial Iris and it’s a Project 365 site. The photographer, who’s name is Claire, lives in London and she’s taking a photo every day of the year and posting it on her blog. She’s also got a section on Tips For Photographing Relfections which I wish i’d read before I went on my field trip! Read and enjoy: http://www.thedigitaliris.net/
Our next newsletter has a ton of outdoor photography ideas which Tamika has put together and this Daily Mail article of a Canadian photographer has given me an idea for a fall photography project of my own.
One of Denis Collette's photos
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1310109/The-impressionist-reflections-caused-ripples-art-world.html
I’m going spend the next few weeks taking as many Fall photos as possible and am going to put them into a Panorama SmileBook. I’ll probably use a simple layout of one photo per page and use a black background throughout the book as I don’t want any other design elements to distract from the photos.
I’ll post photos and keep you updated on my progress!
I found this interesting article in the latest Vanity Fair magazine: 47% of us would opt to take our photo albums with us into the afterlife if we had the chance!
Last Thursday I attended the BlogHer Business 2010 conference in New York and it was amazing. I spent the whole day taking notes and trying to asbsorb as much information as possible.
How do you get to Manhattan from our office in Farmingdale? You take the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station. And, if you have a “thing” about being late, you take the 5:26 am train. Notice how the humidity fogged up the lens of my camera!
Farmingdale station
The BlogHer conference was held at the Hilton hotel and of course I was the first to arrive.
Hilton hotel where the BlogHer conference was held
Which gave me plenty of time to explore!
First in line!
Once the conference started, I was so busy trying absorb information, I didn’t have time for more photos. BlogHer Business 2010 was the best conference i’ve ever attended! Awesome speakers and the BlogHer staff couldn’t have been more gracious!
It’s here at last! We’ve spent the last 2 months or so creating a new look for the SmileBooks web site!
The new SmileBooks home page
The navigation has now moved from the left side to the top of the page. We’ve gotten rid of that hard to read “Impact” font and hopefully we’ve simplified the whole experience for users. It will now be much easier to find information and inspiration for your photo book projects!
If you haven’t seen it yet, then take a look for yourself: http://www.smilebooks.com/photo-book.php and let me know what you think!
I’m going to be attending the BlogHer conference in New York next week! I’m hoping to learn a lot and am looking forward to putting all my new-found knowledge to work to make this blog Bigger ‘n Better.
EverydayCelebrating tweet
Michelle from Everyday Celebrating, who we’ve worked with so often in the past, will also be there and we’re going to come up with another special offer for her readers.
We’re also hoping to launch the revamped SmileBooks.com web site tomorrow. We’ve put a lot of thought into how to make the web site easier to navigate and also to put our message across more clearly. We really do believe we have the best photo books on the market, so it’s about time we had the best web site too!
This is the first time we’ve ever had to say Good bye to anyone at SmileBooks!
Holly, who you’ll know from Customer Care, has decided that the time has come to follow her dreams. If you’d been to one of our office Christmas parties, or even just spent an hour or two in Customer Care, you’d know that Holly has the most amazing voice!
She’s now going to be sharing it with Disney Cruise passengers this summer, so if you’re taking a cruise and the lead singer of the band just happens to talk with a British accent and answer to the name of Holly, chances are she’ll be able to help you with your Vacation photo book queries too!
Bon Voyage Holly and Thank You!
I’m a huge fan of the Digital Photography School and subscribe to their newsletter. The weekend photography projects they assign are fantastic for those who want to improve their skills.
I also highly reccomend their e-book on travel photography, Transcending Travel, which you can download for about $20 from their web site.
Here’s a link to their tips on how to take a photo out of a plane window: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-take-a-photograph-out-of-a-plane-window
I’ve already posted some of my plane window photos on this blog so here’s one of Conny’s. It was taken on the way back from Thailand and it’s of the Palm Islands off the shore of Dubai.
Plam Islands
If you want to see more of Conny’s photos, page through his travel book of Thailand in our Sample Book section on the SmileBooks web site: http://www.smilebooks.com/travel-photo-book.php
I thought you might enjoy seeing some old photos today. These were taken at the CES in Las Vegas in 2008. Microsoft invited us to present the Vista version of our software on their booth.
Here’s Dominic installing the software the day before the show started:
Dominic getting the booth ready for the show
And here he is enjoying one of our extravagant lunch breaks:
Lunch break
The following photo was taken at the end of a long, hard day:
Dr. Reiner Fageth (CTO), Tracy and Dominic
The SmileBooks brand was launched shortly after this trip and we haven’t looked back since!
A huge big thanks to Ralf and his team who keep developing the software that gets us this kind of recognition!
Just in case you’d forgotten what Ralph looks like, here’s another photo from the Grand Canyon series:
