In case some of you have wondered, I haven’t been talking much about photography lately in my blog. Even though I’ve been heads down in programming lately, I’ve still been trying to keep up to date with my photo-instructional surfing. With great blogs like Strobist combined with Google Reader, this is fairly easy.

The Strobist blog has a great analysis of how this Florida-based photographer got this one-shot family portrait in without losing his hair. Check out the Night Shuttle blog entry at Strobist for the details. [More]

Ok, I?ll have to admit that I?m drawn to this site since my first paying gigs in photography was a forensic photographer to local attorneys documenting construction defects. That being said, this is a fun little site that combines evidentiary job listings along with mini-tutorials. Started only in November of last year, the Crime Scene Photography blog has great potential if they can keep it up. I find it interest too that it appears they are just up the road from me. Their first posting is about a photo class starting at Golden West College just up the road from me. Hmmm?. Wonder if I can squeeze a little time out of my schedule this spring to attend? I also like their (admittedly short right now) link list of interest to those who document crime scenes photographically. Have you ever fancied yourself entering the world of crime scene photography? Perhaps this is a great place to start!

In case you hadn?t seen it yet, Google is now hosting the Life magazine photo archive. You can search on the cutlines of images, the locations of the photographs, the subject of the photo and best of all to those doing photographic research, the photographer?s name!  The archive boasts photos taken from the 1850s to today. Interestingly, Googles blurb about the archive states that you can   which might be a bit difficult since photography is generally accepted as starting in the 1820s. I think perhaps they meant their archive dates to the 1850s to today. Here are some searches that I recently that turned up images by many of my photographic heroes: Weegee: The original paparazzi - http://images.google.com/images?q=weegee&q=source%3Alife (note that there are not many of his photos but a fun picture of him and a Time magazine cover that used one of his images) Margaret Bourke-White http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Margaret+bourke-white+source%3Alife Alfred Eisenstadt http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=alfred+eisenstad+source%3Alife Larry Burrows http://images.google.com/images?q=Larry+Burrows+source%3Alife James Natchwey http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=James+Nachtwey+source%3Alife Robert Capa http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Robert+Capa++source%3Alife Gordon Parks http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Gordon+Parks+source%3Alife  W. Eugene Smith http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=W.+Eugene+Smith+source%3Alife

As mentioned in a previous post, I was a big fan of the David Burnett's work and followed the work of other conflict photographers (Burnett shot in Vietnam) like the Peter and David Turnley, James Nachtwey (who I saw speak in San Diego while in college) and others. Despite the sappy love story, I totally dug the movie Under Fire. Imagine my excitement when I ran across a link to a series on Hulu.com called "In Harm's Way". The episode shown below follows two freelance war photographers as they work on stories in the middle east. Very enlightening as this was an area of photojournalism that I was always keen on pursuing before I got married and priorities changed.  

You know, it struck me just the other day that while I profess to make myself available as a photographer, I don?t often talk about photography in my business blog. Perhaps that has something to do with where the real money is made but it doesn?t necessarily reflect where my real passion is. David Burnett was one of my early photographic heroes (along with Weegee). I remember following his exploits and trying to learn from his photos back in the mid ?80s when I was working at the Daily Sun/Post (or at least it was a daily back then). I was quite pleased to stumble not only upon his blog called ?We?re Just Sayin?, but also the video below. I also greatly enjoyed his post entitled ?History In The Buffer? that was fabulous. Here is a video that he shot of his experience at the 2008 Olympics. Or more appropriately, ?The Olypmpics You Didn?t See? The Olympics You Didn't See from David Burnett on Vimeo.