Chase Jarvis has always been an inspiration to us and many other photographers. I had the opportunity to do a meetup with him a few years back and he shared his knowledge freely for everyone who attended. This is a great article for your photo daydreaming pleasure.

“I think it’s more of the ten-year-overnight success syndrome. There hasn’t really been any one break by my counting, just a lot of small successes combined. Two steps forward, one step back—head down to the trenches, make stuff and put it out there in the world to get cheered or jeered. I can’t speak for other artists, but I think the “making it work” part just takes a hell of a lot longer than most people expect or want to give.”

Chase Jarvis Juxtapoz Magazine

Nighttime tracers passing us by as we sleep in the night can make some wonderful images, creating a highway in the sky effect. A simple technique that requires you to be close to a runway and mount your camera on a tripod using a long exposure (Usually until the plane get out of frame).

SFO crunch by exxonvaldez

Landing 2 by science

747 by science

Windsor Skyway by SirPecanGum

Gravelly Point Take Off by Eric Spiegel

Night Landing BHX by PHILL CORNISH

Highways In The Sky by clearskyphotography.com

Clear for take off by iain-paton

737 Light Trail by Etep

As a photographer I don’t enjoy being in front of the camera. I would rather have my eyes looking through a lens than at it. But every once in awhile I’ll catch a reflection of myself that can make for an interesting shot. I came across some very talented photographers have taken their self portraits to a new artistic level that I thought might inspire you and help you with your photo daydreaming.

Splash by Miss Aniela
Reverie by Miss Aniela

The Dig by Luis Montemayor

By Kayla Varley

Musings by .bella.

Mother may i by brookeshaden

By Anna Hollow

By dogseat

mrcz-lubi_09 by mariczka

Self Portrait by TGKW

An exercise in emotional detachment by Miss Aniela

Wendy’s Peter Pan Syndrome by JolsAriella

in between by .lisakimberly.

mrcz_8 by mariczka

The baby’s room by brookeshaden

Window by sam_samantha

By aaaamandaaaa

life’s what you make it? by Demis COURQUET-LESAULNIER

Screaming for help by noamgalai Note: This image has a great story behind it, watch the video.

canonet_090 by mariczka

The Illusionist by Fawzan Hasan

The self portrait by Miss Aniela

Sprung by Miss Aniela

By alexis mire

Finding a home by brookeshaden

Black and White by Luis Montemayor

Monster – (Self-potrait in shaving cream) by Luca Pierro

Difficulties of the daydream. by karrah.kobus

Dreams in Digital [Explored #144] by Jonathan Vazquez

Acceptance by ha!photography

Gold in the air of Summer by nikki and the whale

The balcony breeze by Miss Aniela

Spin cycle by brookeshaden

Alice by brookeshaden

The light collector by brookeshaden

…the right way by Miss Aniela

SELF by Haggis Chick

Photographer Heather Swanner shares her technique on Confessions of a Prop Junkie on how to make eyes pop when shooting. Capturing the “Window to a soul” is something we are always trying to capture in our photos and Heather has a few simple techniques to help you get there.

Image © Heather Swanner

Learn how she creates these great shots in the article “It’s All About the Eyes”

Alvar Astúlez has an incredible photo collection of landscape images that are sure to inspire. A Graphic Designer from Bolbao Spain, he has the command of light and colors in all his work.

Achmad’s images are beautifully executed with a dreamy effect. I have looked at his photos trying to figure out what he does to create such beautiful work. Besides having excellent subject matter from his native homeland of Jakarta, Indonesia, he seems to be a master at Photoshop. You’ll see he usually darkens the background a bit to make his subject pop, while adding a bit of contrast enhancements to bring out the vivid colors.

throwing for living by asit -

happy new year by asit -

sadness by asit -

balance by asit -

pencak silat by asit -

painting for father by asit -

shower me with your love by asit -

broken heart by asit -

pigeons following an old man by asit -

throwing the net by asit -

Seattle is in the rainy season now for at least the next four months or so. The days are short with darkness descending on us around 4:30. It’s been quite awhile since I picked up my camera because I don’t like to get my gear wet, so I thought I’d inspire readers and myself to get out and shoot some images. I thought it would be fun to share some great images from Flickr.com to inspire all of us as we sit huddled in our dark corners waiting for the sun to shine again.

Freelensing by brandonhuang

Slippery Slope by Dave Mason

The Rain Man! by VinothChandar

60 by B.Romain

Walking in the lakeshore twilight, it’s then you spy carnival lights by pixelmama

States of mind by Pilar Azaña

Explored by Limit

Rain by Pilar Azaña

Merchants Cafe by Terry Divyak

A lonely rose in the rain by Martin Kühn

Salzburgo by Pilar Azaña

Rainy Avenue of the Americas by airicsson

Night Lights Bokeh in KL by DocBudie

On a Rainy Night by Glenn Waters

Reflections Of Amsterdam – Bubble Beamer by AmsterSam

Rainy Bellevue by sparth

All things are insignificant, easily changed, vanishing away. by tropicaLiving – Jessy Eykendorp

Thirsty Hand by Khans of Kuram

monsoon, wedding, cocktail and bokeh (explored) by PNike

History Repeats Itself by AmsterSam

Surviving the storm by brookeshaden

The world above by brookeshaden

While the city sleeps by i k o

Cold Rush by mumphalee

Let’s be Frank by aknacer

Braving the Night Rain by danny st

Into the Light **EXPLORED** by gepixelt

Rainy valentine by Naomi

Awash with colors by Terry Divyak

So you finally got an iPad and you spent hours scouring the App store for your photography needs. Well there are a few gems that you may not have discovered to get you up to speed that I’d like to share.

I am a bit late to the game in getting an iPad, waiting to see if it was really worth having and then procrastinating and never quite getting around to buying one. I received one as a gift for Christmas this year and I have been thrilled and giddy with excitement with this new toy. As photographers we are always seeking new gadgets to help us in the quest for creating and learning and the iPad seems to be perfectly suited for that never ending quest.

After receiving my gift and getting the “go codes” to upgrade as I felt necessary, I knew there were a couple of features I wanted. First, I wanted at least 32Gb of space and I needed the 3G option. A few days after Christmas I took the hour long drive to the Apple store and walked in and did a quick exchange and upgraded. My first thought was that it would take some time to fill out the paperwork for the Verizon data plan, but it was as simple as “When you get home, you can sign up on your iPad”. Cool I thought, this is too easy. Racing back home, I let those around me know that I would be off the radar for awhile as I played with my new toy.

Having an iPhone I knew all the standard apps that were out there to play with to make your images look like it was shot with a Holga or can twist photos of your face into images you can text to your kids. What I was on the quest for was for apps that would help me learn more about photography in addition to the standard editing apps.

First up was Zinio, I have used this program before on my desktop, but I really wanted the option of reading magazines on the iPad and figured this is a great start. The interface is simple, just go to the explore icon and start your search. I found the usual suspects like American Photo and Digital Photo Pro, but as I looked further into the choices, some gems came up like N Photo, a magazine dedicated to Nikon camera owners that was not beholden to Nikon. There were also numerous magazines dedicated to Photoshop, Portraits, Making Money with Photography and more.

The rates to buy the magazines were typically the retail price of $4.99 as you would expect to pay for a magazine. American Photo had a nice surprise when I subscribed by giving me a bunch of free issues from the previous years.

So after spending about $40 on magazines, yes I went a bit crazy, it was time to start looking for some apps.

When I picked up my iPad, I added the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit so I could download images directly from a memory chip or camera onto the iPad. Not a bad thing to have when I’m out in the field shooting. But when I’m at home, I want an easy alternative to uploading files to share with people. PhotoSync does that perfectly by uploading through your wi-fi at home to your computer, iPad or iPhone. All you do is install the app on your iMac, load the app on your iPad and select the action to copy. It will copy from your iPad to your Pictures/PhotoSync directory. At only $1.99 this is probably the best bargain out there for us Photographers.

Photographers i, has ushered in what is going to be the leading edge of Photography Magazines on the iPad. Just the list of contributors like Jay Maisel and Paul Harcourt Davies and many more equally talented photographers. I am very impressed with the effort of the publishers on this Magazine/App.

First you’ll have to download the app at the App store which is free, but as you soon learn the magazine is not. You can download a “Taster Issue” to see what all the fuss is about, but for a $1.99 the real deal is more than worth it. Here the magazine had me saying “Wow” to myself as I watched embedded video and listened to Michael Freeman share ten frames from a shoot with audio commentary on each. There is also an interactive option (see image below) which goes along with the commentary to point out specific parts of the image to help you understand his thoughts on composition.

The bonus for this magazine in my mind is that their only “Focus” or theme is the “reality of taking photos to professional standards”. These guys are not a bunch of gear heads talking about the latest pocketswiveltripodmount thing a ma jig, but talking about what it takes to make a great photo and the art of image making.

The last app I want to talk about (Don’t worry I’ll share more in later posts) is Flipboard. Flipboard is the app that we all dream about, it allows you to aggregate your favorite websites into a newspaper style reading approach. Just add your favorite websites and it will create a flipboard (see below) for that site, Provided they have an RSS feed.

So there you have it, just a few of my favorite apps so far for the iPAd. Feel free to share your favorites in the comments section and I’ll be adding more as I make the discoveries.

Imagine for a moment that you get up in the morning and grab your camera gear, hop into a C-130 and take to the skies. Behind you the rear door of the C-130 opens and in the distance you can see little dots approaching the aircraft, soon the seven dots are in formation and it’s time for you to get to work to shoot the Blue Angels.

Tyson Rininger lived this dream and shares his story of shooting this and other aircraft on his website.

Check out his blog for some inspiration.