An Alert Reader

In response to the request of an alert reader and good friend, here's the photo of the young lady the wild and wooly cameraman below was shooting and an explanation, of sorts, as to the camera details and why I had to act like a nut to capture the shot this way.

Most of the people performing in period costumes, whether they're marching or dancing as part of the reenactment ceremonies for the Ryukyu King and Queen's Coronation, are forbidden to smile. In fact, many of the Okinawan Dances I shoot, have the same rules; they're very formal affairs with hours of rigorous training and rehersals behind them.

What I was attempting to do here was capture one of these beauties, with blue sky and skyscrapers in the background. Actually, I threw away half a dozen other photos from this same series where the young ladies were staring at me as if their eyes were cold-steel, piercing my lens. I figured, maybe, if I acted like a nut or paparazzi (same), I might get someone to crack a smile. And it worked ! Sometimes ya gotta break the rules; all of them.

Photo taken with a Pentax K10D, Camera Flash, Spotmetered, f/11 1/180 ISO 100 Pentax 18-250 mm lens at 48mm . 1NOV2009 12:38PM Brilliant sun and harsh shadows made it a difficult shot so, flash was used to soften the shadows. Flash set to Compulsory Red Eye Reduction.

Sumitran, my alert reader-friend, thanks for the inspiration !
To see my Blog where almost flawless English is mandatory and I even get paid for it (Don't tell the IRS) please visit and comment HERE

Cheers,
Mike

Sometimes Ya Gotta Break All the Rules

Now, for anybody who reads the Blog where I get paid for talking about how to use a camera, what the cameraman in this photo is doing is photographic heresy. He's shooting without a tripod. He has only one hand on the camera, a finger ready to snap the shutter and the thumb of his left hand pointing up in the sky. What kinda knucklehead photographer would pull a stunt like that ?

It's me. PHOTO COURTESY of Doc Graff who happens to be my shootin' sidekick and designated driver, usually about once a week. Doc, started up this thing called a E-zine. I think it's like some sorta 21st Century invention to save trees, plus, you don't use up so much Digital Ink typin' on your computer; they shortened Electronic Magazine all the way down to just,"E-zine". It's a whole new language, to me.

Anyway, I was looking at Doc's E-zine and noticed he has my blog hooked-up on the front page where the whole world can see it. And, it says, I haven't posted anything in 3 weeks. So, I figure it's a good way to get me working on my own blog more often. Just wish somebody'd start paying me for it. Maybe, if we got about 10,000 people to kick in $5.00 a month, or something, we could start up a real magazine and have enough PROPHETS to buy that $7,000 lens I've been looking at. HAH, I love it when I trick the spellchecker Dude !

Not being very good at New Year's Resolutions, typing, marriages and a few other things, I was asked by another magazine what I'd try to do for the New Year. They're probably gonna quote me, too. I said something like,"Cut down on my writing and spend more time with my true love, my camera".

And, I'll probably spend more time sleeping with the dogs.



Happy New Year !

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!