I would imagine that he'd been working on this ebook for a long time, but a few weeks after I sent him the image, he sent me a link to download a copy of the finished book.

It's a good read, touching on photography basics, and then later getting into more sophisticated and complicated techniques such as light painting and star trails.

I think Jim has done an excellent job of concisely covering a variety of photographic basics, while still managing to progress through more complex techniques in a fairly short book. Being an ebook, it was nice to see a blend of traditional print layouts and photos as well as multimedia video clips.

Check out his ebook "Photographing The 4th Dimension: Time".]]> http://blog.enfoto.ca/2011/12/photographing-the-4th-dimensio.html http://blog.enfoto.ca/2011/12/photographing-the-4th-dimensio.html techniques Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:57:14 -0500 Getty images is one of the largest online stock photography companies, and has millions of images which are available for license. A few years back, Getty announced a partnership with flickr where select photographers and their images would be incorporated into the Getty images collection. It is by invitation, and once invited and confirmed as a contributor, images can be submitted for review by Getty editors for inclusion in the flickr collection.

Getty editors will also seek out photographers and photos posted to flickr which they are interested in for licensing purposes, predominantly because the images match current trends or demands within the marketplace.

A few months ago, I received an invitation to join the Getty images flickr collection as a contributor and asked to submit 5 images for review for licensing. About a month later, I received another request to submit another 7 images for review and inclusion.

I'm honoured to be a Getty contributor!

All of my images available for license through Getty can be seen here.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Time sure flies, because they've since welcomed a baby girl into their family, and Allison asked if I'd take some newborn and family photos for them.

Personally, I enjoy people photos, and it's really cool to have had the opportunity to capture their engagement, wedding and now, baby girl.

My camera had a very real front-focusing AF issue as evidenced by this side-by-side comparison image, using centre-point, one shot, single point AF:

I could shoot the same tree from 10 feet all day and end up with the same out of focus image.

The second body, a loaner 7D from the CPS pool produced the second image using the same lens, on a tripod, in very bright daylight. (ISO 100, f/1.2, 1/2500s).

At least in Canada, there is only one product specialist for the 7D in Mississauga it seems, so if more than one person has sent a 7D in for this problem, and probably more than once, it would suggest that Canon knows more than they are saying.

If you've had AF-related issues with your 7D and have a case to make, please sign the petition

This issue seems to affect a small number of 7Ds, so the assumption is most work absolutely fine. If yours works great, and you've never had an issue, happy shooting, but I'm mostly interested in people who have similar issues and have also sent their camera in to Canon service.

If there are enough people who report similar issues I will try and come up with a better way to organize and track this data.

She was a little anxious and camera shy, but looking at these pictures, she looks great, and her red hair adds a fantastic contrast to the low-key shots and black seamless.

The lighting in these shots definitely represents an improvement over my previous low-key work. Assisted in large part by new grids for my Elinchrom reflector which help to control and direct the light. The main light is a Ranger RX through a 1 meter Deep Octa softbox.

As it turned out, the kids were actually way more interested in playing in the park and with the fallen leaves than having their picture taken. Aside from all of that, we still managed to have some fun, and capture some of it too.

It all starts with rock star posing:

and continues with some log ride fun:

...the rest is history!

I was quickly reminded of what a moving target little ones are. ;)

For location-based shoots, I've been trying to reduce the amount of gear I travel with, while still bringing enough to be flexible. We did this shoot at her house, so I didn't know what to expect, and also couldn't depend on the weather to co-operate.

I've been mostly shooting with fixed focal-length prime lenses as the image quality, sharpness, speed and subject isolation are much better than zooms. Of course, the trade-off is that I carry a bag full of lenses with me. I used a 50mm f/1.2 for almost this entire shoot.

On the lighting side, if I'm doing a shoot by myself, I tend to only bring strobes for lighting. A couple of 580EXs and a couple of Lastolite EzyBox softboxes with lightstands are what I tend to use for location shoots, especially indoors. For this shoot, I also brought a 6'x7' collapsible Lastolite backdrop that has both a black and white surface.

While we didn't manage to get all of the sets we were hoping for, Lennon was extremely patient, and we did get a whole lot of great shots.

Maybe we'll see this little guy again in the future!

When I asked the bride-to-be if she'd be interested in an engagement shoot, she told me it might be kind of difficult, since they reside in Vancouver. In any case, they committed to having me shoot the wedding.

It was a really nice day, and even though it was sticky and hot, some nice clouds and periods of overcast skies helped to temper the midday sun a little bit.

We had a great time covering their wedding day and I believe we were able to capture much of its emotion and happiness. I hope that they have a wonderful life together!

For more from the wedding, view the slideshow.