We’ve teamed up with @DIYPhotography for a 33% Off Inspiration / Gear Power Combo This is a limited 2 week offer. When it’s gone, it’s gone. What you get is the original Strobist Favorites Gallery Vol. 1 limited edition trading card set along with an instantly down-loadable copy of the DIYPhotography.net Home Studio Photography eBook for $29.95.

Trade Secret Cards and the DIY Home Studio Photography eBook go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly, but your hands are the bread. Really good bread. Mmmmm. Hand bread! Yummy!

If you don’t have these yet, this is a great chance to get them both for a killer price.

Nice!

If you don’t have a set already, what are you waiting for? If you do have a set, this is the perfect chance to get a back up and extras for gifts. How many chances do you get to put Chase Jarvis in your pocket?

Sample Front:

Sample Back:

Your purchase will help fund future projects!

Nice!

Hang on— 1½?

Yep. There is a brand new Strobist Trade Secret Cards (Volume 2) and Vol. 1 has been reprinted to match the new larger format. I won’t get into it too much here as you can read all the details over at Trade Secret Cards, but the general idea here is the original sets from Trade Secret Cards were the size of baseball cards. The new sets are post card size and thickness. They are bound into a book, but they are perforated so you can easily tear them out and take them one at a time if you like with you on your shoots.

Here’s a comparison shot with the new format on the left.

The best part is this larger format are being co-published and distributed by Peachpit (the company who publishes all of Joe McNalley’s books and a million other high profile folks). They are a division of Pearson – the largest educational publisher in the world. That means you can buy them not only online, but almost every book store and camera store in the world will either have them or can order them for you.

A brief description for the people who have no idea what the heck I’m talking about:

Trade Secret Cards is all about giving you the inspiration and tools to help make your photographs the best they can be. It doesn’t take hundreds of pages or piles of complicated theories to take great photographs. Trade Secret Cards uses Micro-Lessons—an inspiring image on one side with simple to understand diagrams, tips, and descriptions on the other side—so you can spend less time reading and more time shooting.

Amazon: Vol 1, Vol 2
Barnes & Noble: Vol 1, Vol 2
Peachpit: Strobist Photo Trade Secrets, Volume 2: Portraits (shipping in a few weeks)
Strobist Photo Trade Secrets Volume 1: Expert Lighting Techniques (ships right away)

Just to make it extra clear for previous buyers of our first set: Strobist Favorites Gallery Vol. 1. Strobist Photo Trade Secrets Vol. 1 has the same information and images as Strobist Favorites Gallery Vol. 1 but has been reprinted in this bound and perforated postcard-size format. Strobist Photo Trade Secrets, Volume 2: Portraits is all new images and information.

Now that it’s all done I hope to have more time to dedicate to getting the blog back up to snuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nice!

If you can’t tell from the design of Nice Photography Magazine that I have a viceral connection to items from the first half of the 20th century, you aren’t paying very close attention. 1920′s newsboy hat? Extra, extra, read all about it. Zeke buys it! Two foot fold out brass and wood ruler date stamped 1942? Measure my empty wallet because I just bought you. 1930′s garage sale ball peen hammer give me a boner? Yep. Pardon my French.

I own lots and lots of digital cameras and a fair amount of vintage film cameras, too. But that doens’t change the fact that I want more and what I need is a compact large sensor camera. No, none of the current offerings do it for me. I’ve done extensive testing and they all fall flat with some critical flaw that keeps me shooting with my big 5D mII or my cell phone camera, and on occasion my G9 that is too big to put in a pocket, but not good enough quality that if I’m going to bother I might as well bring the 5D. Feel my pain?

Fuji has done one better, way better in my opinion, in not just bringing in a compact large sensor camera, but it going way back to the past for it’s styling and functionality (lots of manual dials). Word is it’s going to be just under a grand and be available March 2011. Will I buy one the first day it is humanly possible. Oh yes I will.

Does this camera work for you? Depends how you work. Fixed lens (can’t swap it out with another or zoom it) 35mm equivalent. F2. Shoots HD video, too.

Full specks here: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1009/10091910fujifilmx100.asp

Could anything stop me from buying this camera. Only one thing comes to mind: A Canon surprise. Likely. Hmm…. could be.

Nice!

You see, today is Nice Photo Mag’s 1^st birthday!

When I started Nice a year ago, I had an idea about what I wanted to say, but that idea crystallized over the past 12 months to the point where it is now. Just where is that? Thanks for asking. It’s the Why To photography magazine. There are lots of great places out in the world and on the web where you can find How To photography. Though I’m pretty pleased with my technical chops I think pretty much all of the top photo bloggers have a better handle on that angle. My strength is in the creativity department, the why I do the technical things and the creative decisions. My entire adult life the only way I’ve earned a living has been through my creative endeavors: Writing and directing TV and Features, taking portrait, documentary, and fine art photography. I’m very fortunate to get to do what I love and get paid for it, too. That was my goal growing up.

Now I have a goal with Nice, and that is to encourage other photographers and film makers to think about the medium from the creative point of view. The idea. The story. The message. I’m not trying to downplay the technical. I’m a gear head. I love tech knowledge. But technology doesn’t communicate, it’s the ideas, the stories, the art created with the technology that can topple governments, convince the world to take up a cause, or make me mum cry.

Do your favorite photographs make you feel or think? Or do you like them because they are neat looking? If you said, “Neat looking,” that’s fine. I love neat looking photographs, too. But if you want your images, the images you take, to illicit a reaction other than, “neat,” go to the library and spend a day or a week or a month looking though the photography section. Find images that aren’t just technical wonder-works, but instead cause you to feel something deep in your gut, to move you. Then start thinking about how you can make an image that would have that effect on a stranger who might look at it someday, somewhere.

It’s hard. I think it’s worth it.

Some may disagree, and after all, it is just my 2 cents, but I’d rather look at a scratched up Polaroid that tells a story than the most technically perfect photograph ever taken.

Anyhow, today Nice turns one year old. I’ve changed the drapes. I’ve gone with a hint of the past. A touch of old circus. Why? Well, it seems to me a lot about the good old days was good, or nice. Heck, they must have called it good for some reason. I mean, they had the worst depression ever and even that was the Great Depression. Now that’s the kind of attitude I’d like to share. I hope, in some way, I can make a few people’s day just a little bit more Nice.

Stay tuned. I’ve got some very interesting things planned for year 2.

Nice!

http://chsvimg.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/d90/en/d-movie/

It looks sweet to me. Sure, there are limitations, and sure, I shoot Canon, and sure if the Canon 5D follow up doesn’t have a HD movie mode I’m totally going to cry and maybe pee a little in pants like a little baby. What? I’m just being honest.

Bottom line? Being able to shoot with high quality glass, short depth of field, and almost full frame sensor at a range of ISO’s makes me get all giggly. Now I just have to wait for Canon to do it. PS: Canon, make yours full frame and shoot to uncompressed video and the world will forget you weren’t the first folks out of the gate with it. I promise.

Hugs!

Nice!

At Nice our focus falls on the motivation, the idea, the process that leads up to making a photograph rather than taking it. It’s a place to find stories related to photography from a different point of view. Photo tech tips, how-to’s, photography videos, interviews, behind the scenes, advice, opinions, and photography equipment, books, and video reviews – it’s all right here.We’ll try and keep the complaining to a minimum. If a product sucks, we’ll say so – and at volume, but mostly we’re here to have fun, share information, and maybe help a few people think about photography from a different point of view. In the end if that means they take better photographs, that would be Nice.

Though we’ve gone with a magazine format for the layout, the plan is to try and post at least a couple articles every week, so feel free to check back often. To be sure you haven’t missed any articles click the recent articles tab on the front page to see the latest 12 posts or check the archives in the lower right column for a list of posts in chronological order by month.

Thanks and welcome.

We still have a few more articles to finish before we officially announce that Nice is live, so if you found us early, please excuse the mess. We should be good to go by the 24th. Come back as often as you like as we’ll be updating regularly. Thanks!

Nice is an online magazine about the world of digital photography from a photography-as-art point of view. Whether it’s black and white photography, fashion or glamor photography, photo equipment gear reviews, digital photography tips, or articles about professional photographers, it’s always about the art of making better creative photographs.