It's about time for APRIL CHALLENGE SUBMISSIONS

busy busy.. that's all I have to say. Where has the month gone. We're already half way into May and I realised we hadn't posted out submissions for April. *sigh* Well.. we waited a month and a half for this one, hopefully the next one will be on time.

So what are you waiting for.. enjoy the submissions!!!

Braden


Frank


Ryan


Bob


Traci

FINALLY MARCH SUBMISSIONS!!!

I apologize for the delay. I got side tracked and realised I had left something undone. But this is what you've waited all month for... so here they are.

As usual a gallery has been created and which you can find at March Submissions
Here are the submissions for Movement and Squares. ENJOY!!!

Adelvon


Frank


Jenifer


Justin


Tom


Suranga

February 09 Submissions... Better Late than Never!

Here are the February Submissions. Critique as you wish!

A gallery has been created and which you can find at February Submissions
Here are the submissions.

Adelvon



Frank



Ryan


Traci



Suranga


Braden


Steph

March Challenges!!

Good day Everyone!


February has come to an end and March has finally arrive!!! So everyone knows what that means... NEW CHALLENGES!!!

The new challenges are as follows:

Challenge 1.SQUARES Brought to you by Suranga, who btw produced that beautiful Travel Photography Tutorial. Please go take a look if you haven't already! ; and

Challenge 2. MOVEMENT Brought to you by Jenifer one of our newer members from last month!

Submissions of your photos should be via e-mail (nirvana.shutter@gmail.com) by 11:59pm on March 31, 2009.

HAPPY CLICKING EVERYONE! We all look forward to seeing what photos will be produced this turn around!

Travel Photography 101 - Advice from a Fellow Traveller

There’s no doubt that memories gained from traveling last a lifetime. One of best ways to capture those moments is through the creative use of your camera. The goal of this article is to highlight my personal approach when it comes to travel photography.

Quality over Quantity
I often see travelers solely concerned with capturing that next great picture while forgetting to take-in the experience and ambiance of an exotic locale. I tend to find my best shots develop as I take time experiencing my surroundings before reaching for my camera. The initial perspectives you gain might hinder you from a truly extraordinaire picture. Take the following snapshot as an example. This picture was taken in Washington, DC while commuting through the metro. If I hadn’t taken time to study my surroundings and caught the metro as soon as it arrived, I would have missed out on this shot.

DuPont Circle Metro Station, Washington, DC.

Taking that great landscape shot
Landscape photography is an excellent way to capture the diversity of this world. The best results for me usually involved a wide depth of field; lower the aperture (higher f-stop) to get an endlessness feeling transcended through the photograph to the person viewing it. Take the picture below as an example. It was taken on the Salinas Salt Flats in Northwestern Argentina. I used a low aperture so that the viewer would immediately notice the crusted ground in the foreground and then follow the pattern into the distance to get a felling of infinity. I also made use of the rule of thirds when it came to the sky and mountain background, which added significantly to the composition of the shot.

Salinas Salt Flats, Argentina

Tailor your shot to the time of day
Sometimes it’s impossible to wait till dusk to get opportune lighting conditions for photography. You have to be able to adjust to your surroundings and pay particular addition to the light available. This can often be a blessing in disguise, switch things up and try to suit shots for the time of day. An example I have for this is this picture I took immediately after sunset in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Tripods make a world of difference
There are some highly practical travel sized tripods available on the market that severely cuts down on storage space in your pack. One that comes to mind is the gorillapod manufactured by Joby. I had one with me on my recent trip through SE Asia and it came in handy for a number of shots that turned out to be keepers. I wouldn’t have been able to take this shot at “The Peak” in Hong Kong without it.

View of Central and Kowloon from “The Peak”, Hong Kong.”

Work for that “wow” shot
Everyone wants that breathtaking shots from their vacations. The standout shots don’t come easy and often come by inadvertently stumbling upon a sight. Take this picture from a long weekend trip to New York City. Originally, I intended to walk through Central Park to midtown and I happened to pass by the reservoir at a perfect time of day to take this reflection shot. What you don’t see is the fence I’m propped up against trying to avoid countless New Yorkers taking their morning run directly behind me.

Central Park Reservoir Reflections

- Suranga Samarakoon


This tutorial was provided by Suranga Samarakoon. I met Suranga at work about a year ago and was blown away by his photography. Suranga is what I call a man of the world. After showing me his latest photos from his travels through SE Asia this past year, I had to ask Suranga to write a tutorial on Travel Photography.

- Frank L.

Rules

Ground Rules


1.Type of Cameras?
All cameras allowed; not just for dSLRs. This group is about the photos and not about the type of camera you have. Every camera is capable of taking a good shot. It's up to the photographer to compose that shot and to know their camera well enough to do so. But that's a learning process that we can go through as a group.

2. Monthly Challenges:
Every month two challenges are announced via e-mail and posted on the website. For each challenge members can submit two photos per challenge for a total of 4 photos per month. To submit your photos, just e-mail them into nirvana.shutter@gmail.com where our magic fairies upload them to the website.

Challenges are "Flexible". It is not mandatory to complete every challenge, but you'll benefit the most by doing your best to complete as many challenges as possible; even when you are on vacation and assuming you have internet access to check the blog.

3. Post production Explained
It's up to the member to be as creative as they want.

Minimal post production is allowed. When I say minimal, I'm putting a time limit on it. 5 minutes is the maximum a member is allowed to work on a weekly challenge photo in a post production program (not including resizing). Once again no artificial artifacts are allowed. Levels/Curves modifications are ok if you can do them in ten minutes. The idea behind this is to force a member to try and take better pictures right from the start. This way they'll be employing more photography techniques into their pics rather than rely on a program to do all the tweaking.

Again what are the basics?
1) Cropping
2) Resizing
3) Contrast
4) Slight Exposure modification
5) Sharpening
6) Saturation
7) Black and White Conversion

4. Submission Guidelines

Resize your photos to 1600 pixels max on the longest edge of your photo and e-mail into nirvana.shutter@gmail.com. If you can't resize no worries, we'll do it for you!

February Challenges, Announcements, Stuff - In no particular order!

Hello All!

A few announcements before we get to our February Challenges.

January's submissions have been processed and are up on the website. Here is a link to the post

http://shutternirvana.blogspot.com/2009/01/january-2009-submissions-wooohoooo.html

There is also a link to a gallery for just the January submissions on the right hand side under links. Feel free to check out the photos.

I want to commend everyone who participated this month with truly spectacular shots. I can't tell which shots were taken with a dSLR or a point & shoot camera because they all look professionally done. Give yourselves a pat on the back. If anyone would like to comment on the shots that are posted up or critique any of the shots feel free to do so. All you need to do is click on the post link and scroll down until you get to the highlighted comments link. Click on that and type in your comment. Please list who the photo is by and which photo of theirs you are commenting in your writeup.

Well let's get to the February Challenges without further delay. Considering February is all about Valentine's our themes are going to be...

LOVE!

&

BED!

Now keep in mind with these themes that they can be very open and some of our viewers may be sensitive to some of the shots you may be thinking of. Go ahead and take whatever shots you want but when you are uploading or sending them in, please let the administrator know that you're going for something provocative so that we can post it in the appropriate section at the time.

As always 2 shots per theme may be submitted by the end of the month by either uploading or e-mailing your submission to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

Also, this month the Calgary Banff Photography Festival is happening. www.exposurecalgarybanff.com

I'm planning to head down to Art Central this Thursday (Feb 5, 2009) after work to check out this big photography shindig. If you're interested in meeting up and checking it out, send an e-mail to the group's address.

Other things to look out for this month:

- Keep February 21st open as this will be our meeting date for this month.

- The Exposure Photography Festival is happening so we'll be sending out spontaeneous e-mail times for meeting up and checking stuff out. Keep an eye out for Shutter Nirvana e-mails in your inbox

- New Questions & Answers will be sent out through e-mails as well as posted up on the website

- New Tutorials will be sent out through e-mails as well as posted up on the website

P.S. A shout out to Traci for pitching in and organizing Shutter Nirvana stuff with me. Thx and much appreciated.

As always, I look forward to seeing your shots for this month and happy shooting!!

Frank

Shutter Nirvana