Browse Photos in Web 2.0 Style

Whether you’re looking up a specific type of photos on Flickr, browsing Google images for school, or just checking out your friend’s photos on Facebook, Piclens rocks. It allows you to see an endless stream of photographs in a sleek format. You’ll start looking at photos just for the fun of looking!

It has also been reviewed by some prominent people..

“Coolest web photo viewer ever . . . stunning.” — CNET
“Fun and addictive” — Wired
“Gorgeous, a Great Idea” — Macworld
“New immersive approach to Web navigation” — NY Times

If you haven’t tried it yet, you will love it. Check out PicLens today!

How to Make Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans

I was looking for an article how to make chocolate covered coffee beans and found some good ones.. but all text! So here is a short tutorial with photos!

1. Fill pan with 1″ water.

2. Gather your delicious chocolate chips and coffee beans.

3. Put a double boiler in the pan (make sure the bottom does not touch the water in the pan) and put in your chocolate chips.

4. Heat until the chocolate chips melt.

5. Mix coffee beans into the melted chocolate.

6. Spread on wax paper and stick in freezer for a half hour or so.

7. Enjoy!

Flash Velcro Modification

After a long trip to Lowe’s (love that place) I exited with 36″ of Velcro. The idea was to wrap the Velcro around my flash head so I can attach light modifiers, but so I am able to take the Velcro strap off. Then, it looks a lot neater, doesn’t lower the resale value, and is pretty darn nifty.

1. Here lie the lovely Velcro pieces, ready to cut. I wrapped it around the flash head to get a feel for the length.
2. Two evenly cut pieces, the other strap I made, and scraps to the left. The one side sticks to the carpet nicely – peel the backs and adhere back-to-back.
3. Here’s the finished products. Sweet and simple.
4. And this is what it looks like on the flash. Start attaching..stuff!

(See the image larger) (Idea credit: Strobist)

On-Camera Flash Trick

Simply turn the camera upside-down. Rotate 180 degrees. Your viewfinder will be on the bottom instead of the top – as will your flash.

Simple trick I figured out, but it really changes the photo. See the illustration below for more details. (Click for larger version.)

Keep a Photo Idea Journal

One thing I’ve really started doing is compiling a list of photographs I’d like to try sometime for fun or may actually use while shooting a wedding or otherwise. (I also draw lighting diagrams on violin concert programs, but that’s a different story.)

I found this great idea while from a friend’s blog.
New Model Coming Soon
Hang a piece of baby clothing somewhere with clothespins.. via Abby

I obviously can’t take credit for this idea, but this is just a sample..so you can see what I mean. Writing down ideas is great, especially if you’ll otherwise forget it like me!

Free Sweetness

I’ve recently found these two sources for some amazing layering stuff.

The Noise and Dust Through the Viewfinder
Their pool of photos is full of delicious, grunge-covered, TTV layers! The photo to the right was spiced up with one of them. Most of the pictures are for free use, but make sure to check the creative commons..a handful are not. But there’s some great freebies there.

Steal this stuff! by 3rdFoundation
Here’s a set of layers by one of my favorite photographer friends from flickr. He has a great variety here, all which you can use – free! Whoopee! (Bonus Tip: For one sweet photo, he layered in a shot of some star formation he got from NASA, I believe. Public domain!)

There’s two of my sweet finds..what treasure troves have you stumbled upon?

Library of Congress..Flickr?

The Library of Congress is keeping with the times with..a flickr? And apparently, the photos are all under a new “non-copyright“.

“We’re also very excited that, as part of this pilot, Flickr has created a new publication model for publicly held photographic collections called “The Commons.” Flickr hopes—as do we—that the project will eventually capture the imagination and involvement of other public institutions, as well.”

My first thought? Hmm..any cool layers? Free..

(Oh, in other news, Apple came out with a new laptop. My only hope is that the price of the older models will go down a bit.)

Holy Hyperlinkage!

This has to be one of the most amazing ideas I have seen..the insanity begins at 2:47.

Photosynth

Website Shopping Tip

Just a quickie – I’ve been pretty busy.

The next time you’re setting up a website, before you purchase the domain and hosting — look around for a coupon. I just got my domain from GoDaddy.com and searched for a coupon on a whim. Came up with this nice site.

Lesson: Even some web businesses have sales and coupons. Use ‘em.

(I’ll be back in a bit with an update about my website..I’ve been working hard on it!)

Amazing Inspirational Artist

“Richard Wawro was diagnosed as “moderately to severely retarded” at the age of three, a condition later recognized as autism. He did not learn to speak before the age of 11 and required eye surgery to remove cataracts, which left him with sufficiently poor eyesight to be classed as legally blind.” -Wikipedia

Richard Wawro has created some of the most amazing handmade art I have seen – with crayons. Many of his drawings look amazingly like a photograph, especially at thumbnail size. But even at larger sizes it is crazy how real they are and how it contains some elements of photography. (DOF is a large one I noticed.)

Check out his awesome work here!  (Also, see a documentary of his work here.)