Real Busy Week

Yesterday, I jumped through hoops getting this photo and 100 words, or so, submitted to the Hawaii Islands Contest at Trazzler. This morning I found out through email that it's moved into Round Two of the contest. Now, it's up to the public to do what's called "ADD TO WISHLIST", which is a fancy term for "VOTE".
Just like anywhere, you have to register to vote. It takes a few minutes, but, it's time well spent if you're interested in making some money doing travel writing. And it's easy, under 150 words will get you over. That's like a paragraph, for most people or a sentence from my wife!
This photo could win the grand prize and get me a trip for two to Hawaii. If I win I'll stay home and walk my dogs and see if they'll let the wife and her sister go to Hawaii. Ahh, peace and quiet on my island. But, I'm not really greedy, don't need the Grand Prize, just a small prize like $1,000 or even $250 for a writing contract'd make me happy.

So, if you have a few minutes, GO HERE and see my story. Then CLICK on ADD TO WISHLIST and you voted for me. It's that simple!

Sometimes millions of people are trying to Trazzle and read at the same time and it makes signing in tricky, so, I wrote some tips about how to get around that HERE
and, so far, it gets me signed in every time. So rock the vote and if you become a Trazzler HOLLER at me when you need a vote and you've got mine!

Who is Rose Witmer ?

Well, I promised I'd introduce the new writer as soon as she got published. I also promised her I wouldn't post a photo of her until she got to see it and approve. Haven't been able to catch uo with her for her approval so, I did a little compromise, here. She's a busy gal, always on the go and I just can't keep up with her but, I can't keep letting my blog sit here with no photos on it, either. So, here's Rose Witmer, on the go.
She got published in the same magazine I did, my first time, Apogee Photo Magazine
Then, a few days later, hit Romar Traveler Magazineand she's chomping at the bit to hit every magazine she can. If I ever catch up with her and get a chance to have her select a photo she wants the world to see, I'll post it here. Until then, you'll just have to keep on guessing: Who is Rose Witmer ?

An Experiment With Flickr

Here's a shot of Masateru Yamamoto (Center) surrounded by Tatsuya Taujino, Hideyuki Kurasawa, Norimasa Tanaka and Yoshimitsu Shinkawa a fine group of folks I met in the village of Ada Kunigami Okinawa, Japan when I was getting ready to climb the mountain just before the Shinugu Matsuri. They were visitors to Okinawa from somewhere up in the mainland and I got the big fellow to sign a release form in exchange for a promise to email him a copy of the photo.

My wife made me these neat Model Release Forms (In Japanese Kanji). They say something like "Put your name, address, email, phone number HERE and the guy with the camera will give you a FREE PHOTO. In exchange for that you give him permission to enter your photo in contests, have it published in magazines, sold in his gallery, or anything else that ain't against the law, like printed on Madonna's underwear she keeps forgettin' to wear.

Anyhow, after emailing the big guy the photo and finding out he wanted a larger size, I asked him if he'd like to have it published in a magazine. The only catch being, everybody in the photo would have to give me their names and consent to be published. Some magazines are picky about things like that, so, I have to make sure I do the stuff legal-like; magazines don't want to get sued and neither do I, over a picture I took.

Well, a few days later Masateru emailed me with everybody's names and not only permission to have the photo published, they asked to be published and wanted me to tell them where and when they'd be published. So, I stuck the photo on flickr and emailed them a LINK to show them their photo with names in the caption and everything. Then, I went about trying to REALLY GET THEM PUBLISHED. I could tell they had been looking and showing their girlfriends, or somebody, because as of yesterday the photo IMGP4586 had EIGHT VIEWS !!!

Last night the photo was REALLY PUBLISHED and I StumbledUpon, Tweeted, Delicious Bookmarked and FaceBooked it. Then, went back and added
my magic to the photo on Flickr.

Them Dudes got A HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR HITS, OVERNIGHT !

That's the magic of using Model Releases, your social networks and Flickr, properly and legally. They get their names and faces in print and all kinda folks hittin' on them and I can't get sued.

Gotta run now, though. I think Madonna's lookin' for me!

Happy Halloween !

By the time I get this typed it should be close enough, anyway. It's been a pretty hectic week around this corner of the world and looks like business will be picking up, even more, next week. This photo was taken the last night of the Obon holiday and really has little to do with Halloween, except maybe the colors, spooky face and the fact that all the racket the Eisa Dancers in the streets are making is to send their ancestoral spirits off for another year.

The photo did get published and that's a major accomplishment for a poor old country boy like me. To me, The Brave New Traveler Magazine is the National Geographic of the Matador Network, where, I've been lucky enough to get published a couple of times. Between articles pending print, articles I'm working on and blogs I do regularly, on other people's sites, my poor cameras are collecting alot of dust. So, this weekend, providing Mother Nature cooperates, I'll be out doing a couple of Gigabytes of shooting. Might even catch some spooky ones for ya.

Happy Halloween !

My Weak-End

I know how to spell "Weekend", don't panic smarty pants Spell Checker; I'm talking about MY WEAK-END. Call it my weak-point, if you'd like; indoor photography and I just don't get along.

Wedding photorgaphers and the folks who do studio shots of babies and families have my utmost respect. I admire them, but, don't exactly envy them. Maybe they feel the same way about us outdoors-wildlife types.

Anyway, if you're one of them, STAY OUTA MY JUNGLE and I'll gladly stay outa your studio and weddings!

This was one of my favorite shots captured at my Nephew's wedding Sunday. About as close to the outdoors as I got all weekend. And the photo is probably not exactly what the bride wants to save in her wedding album, but it's perfect for me to use in my Camera Talk Blogs or anywhere else I might like to use it.

It demonstrates what a chore the real photographer has trying to capture a great shot when there's around 300 other people trying to take crappy little pictures with their cell phones. They pop-up everywhere, everytime you're making that last manual adjustment, holding your breath, ready to smoothly trigger the shutter for a jump-off-the-page photo.

The gal on the left was the wedding photographer. And she was good. Swapping out lenses faster than you could look at your watch, without taking her eyes off the subject. Taking 2 or 3 horiontal shots then, 2 or 3 verticals, twisting her on-camera strobe, bouncing flash off the ceiling, climbing a ladder, kneeling; whatever it took to get some awesome shots.

Wedding photographers in this part of the world charge somewhere between $1000-$3000 per event. Pretty decent buisness if you don't mind working weekends.

Me, I'd rather be in the woods or on the beach looking for my million dollar shot. For more on my WEAK-END click on the TITLE ABOVE and go to GALLERY for the Okinawa Wedding Slideshow where you can even hear the mushy music I hooked-up for the family and friends.

Back to the jungle.....