JPP Daily Photos

Image# 1

Image# 2

Image# 3

Image# 4

Image# 5

Here are some more photos taken with my custom light box. The first three set of photos of the donkey were all taken using an SB800 in Nikon CLS wireless mode. The first two were set on the left side of the box with the aperture set to f2.8 and f5.6 respectively. The last photo was taken from above at f5.6.

The next photo is a can of Mountain Dew with the same settings as the last Donkey shot but with the image cropped.

The last one of the two fruits was with the same settings.

Noticed on all of the photos, the fallout from the shadows is minimal. One of the best advantages of using a light box is the light is diffused usually wrapping around the object. Thus making the subject or object more agreeable to look at.

JP

How to Make An Inexpensive Light Tent – DIY

Remember last week when I posted that article on "How to Make An Inexpensive Light Tent – DIY"?

Well after a trip to Michael's art store where I purchased $18 worth of materials, I spent about 4 hours today making my own light box!

Fortunately I already had a lamp with "Daylight” Bulbs. Taking out my trusty Nikon D200, I took the following quick shots of some items in my room.

I should be using my new light box with some gourmet food next week. I will post those photos when their available.

JP

Photoshop Tips

I found this great article on "How to use Layer Masks and Adjustment Layers in Photoshop". I've been using layer masks and adjustments for the past year. And, without a doubt, its changed my view of post processing in photoshop. If you've been using photoshop awhile or even just a beginnner, I highly recommend you watch this video.

jp

Photography Trip

With the weather so nice here in the bay area (SF, Northern California!), I'm in the mood to do a roadtrip. If I could figure out how to do it on a shoestring budget, I would love to start from So Cal and work my way up the coast to Nor Cal. Just taking pictures of what I see. Or maybe I'll just drive up to Pacifica this weekend....

jp

website update

Just updated my website with a new look and some new photos. Changed the color scheme and the design. I thought it needed something new!

johnpaulphotography.com

jp

JPP Daily Photos

Awww the weather is nice today. Spring is in the air. This picture reminds of the last time I went to yosemite in 2007. I had a great time with my buddy, Jeff, at one of Yosemite's rivers.

jp

Photography Wish List

Here's my wishlist for equipment I need for my photography stuff:

1. New Body like Nikon D300 or D700. Ideally the D700 so I can get back to full frame photos! Also the newer high end D-SLRs have higher ISO with low noise which is ideal for in door low light shooting.
2. Nikkor 50mm and 85mm fast lenses. Preferably around F/1.4. I had to sell my Nikon 85mm F1.8 last year which was a bummer. 8(
3. Scrim for my outdoor lighting situations.
4. Quantam flash, again for outdoor lighting situations.
5. Alienbee studio lights with portable PSU. With softboxes and umbrellas!
6. Pair of Pocket Wizards for the studio lights, of course!
7. Fisheye lens for more creative photos.

Now if I can line up 10 paid photo sessions for the next couple months, I could get a few of these items on my list. =)

jp

Photo Tips

Jen from jensfabulousstuff.com is giving away a free photoshop action as well as having a sale on her actions. Check out the promotion here.

jp

Youtube Video

Maybe its 'cause I'm a guy. Or maybe 'cause I like the Aussie accent but check out this video...



jp

Photo Webinar

I signed up today for Kerry Allen's PSH Ditto Cam - Urban Grunge webinar on March 16th. This webinar will be showing some of the latest techniques for taking urban grunge look for senior photos. Can't wait til the webinar starts!

Oh and found about the Picture Social website, supposedly "The Network for Photographers." It actually looks a like like Facebook but with a photographer theme. lol

Check out both sites if your interested.

jp

Photo Tips

How to Make An Inexpensive Light Tent – DIY by Darren Rowse

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent#ixzz0hnra9at8

I'm off to the store to try to make one of these inexpenive light boxes!

jp

Photo Tips

Great article from North American Photo for WB.

White Balance What is it? How does it work? Why should I care!
By Clark Whitney, CTO, North American Photo

Its always better to nail your white balance (correct colors) on the spot versus correcting them post-processing in photoshop or lightroom. The latter is time consuming when you have to process hundreds or thousands of photos! Believe me, I know.

JP

New Blog Site

So I've designed a new blog site that will concentrate on my photography, social media and viral marketing interests.

The regular John Paul's Blog will be still updated but cater more to my personal interests.

Here's the link the new blog site.



jp

Webinars

Sigh. I've already signed up for some recent David Cuerdon webinars. Plus I just bought some Red boots wedding album photoshop templates last week.

Now I see David Saffir has a cool webinar on social marketing which many of you know is my latest passion! Well hopefully this webinar will run again in the near future when I my budget is in the green. For those of you interested, here's the info on the webinar:

Mastering Social Networking and Social Media – David Saffir instructor $109 for both evenings (Part 1 of a 2 part workshop) Wednesday, March 10th – 6:30pm to 9:30pm SCV Center for Photography.

I highly encourage you to check it out and sign up for the webinar!

jp

JPP Daily Photos

Check out these waves photos link.

Some of the most beautiful waves photos I've ever seen!

jp

Social Marketing Tips

Another great article on Social Marketing from David Saffir, 35 Great Social Media Infographics.

jp

Photo Tips

Got this link from my Kerry Allen newsletter. Just a short video following a wedding photographer who is taking shots of the Groom and some groomsmen.

http://www.nobsphotosuccess.com/NoBsWorld/videos/bri1.html

jp

JPP Daily Photos

So I finished the 4th part of Graphic Authority 101 - ADVANCED - David Cuerdon’s Favorite Photoshop Tips! Since I have some of the tips fresh in my memory, I decided to edit some past photos using these tips (using layer adjustments).

There are just some quick edits. I'll do more in depth using the wedding photos from the last 3 weddings I've done in the past year. Plus maybe some senior and model photos.

jp

Healthcare in the News

I found this story on MSNBC while perusing the current events as is my daily routine in the morning. What I found interesting about this particular story is that even someone from a very reputable news company and a well known healthcare insurance still ran into the huge red tape of what is becoming normal with the current healthcare industry. With days probably making a difference with her current cancer condition, she has to deal with the somewhat idiotic bureaucracy of her healthcare provider. In short, its a telling tale of some of the endemic problems with healthcare.

For me this is an example on why we need to overhaul our healthcare system. As the writer notes at the end of her article, "I'm in despair. I think back to last year, when I signed up for early Social Security. It took one phone call. Fifteen minutes max. Everything was loaded into their system and I could look it up online. All the information was there. It was all correct. My checks come like clockwork on the same day every month. I've never had one problem. Last year my husband signed up for Medicare. Same experience. No problems, no complaints. This is your government at work. Some bureaucrats know how to get it right." If the government bureacrats can get it right for the healthcare insurance problems than I'm all for them overhauling the system instead of leaving it to the current private industry bureaucrats.

jp

Photo Tips

Good article from my Olympus newsletter called, "Seven Tips for Snappin' Good
Social Networking Pics". Since social networking and viral marketing is very popular, these tips will make your social network photos even better!

jp

Ten Social-Media Blogging Tips for Photographers

For those of you like me who've been blogging for awhile, David Saffir wrote a great article on blogging, "Ten Social-Media Blogging Tips for Photographers".

-jp

Health Tips

Good article on "8 best (and worst) natural cold and flu remedies". Its still Flu season, so keep up your health guard against getting the cold and flu.

-jp

Photo Tips

Yesterday I sign up for "Graphic Authority 101 - ADVANCED - David Cuerdon’s Favorite Photoshop Tips! 4 Parts - Tues's, Feb. 9th - March 2nd, 5:30PM CST". For those of you like me (not a beginner nor an expert Photoshop user), this is the perfect class for you. David is asking each person who signs up for his class to send him a sample photo which he will show everyone step-by-step in Photoshop on how to make it better. For me, there's a certain style of post-editing in Photoshop that i've been trying to mimic (i.e. magazine look with vibrant or saturated colors). I'm hoping David can show me how to do it.

This is the 2nd webinar I've attended of his. He definitely has experience and talent in this area. I highly recommend you sign up for one of his free and/or paid webinars. Here's the link.

Plus they have a page for some self-taught Photoshop tutorials here.

jp

JPP Daily Photos

Happy Belated Birthday to both Bryonna and Martin. Bry celebrated her 16th bday and Martin his 18th bday this past Saturday. Here are a selection of photos highlighting their party!

jp

JPP Daily Photos

While I try to carry my Nikon DSLR and kit with me everyday (to catch that photo moment especially for my humble blog), its not always practical to carry my whole gear around. I've been playing with the idea of getting a point and shoot digital like my old Canon G2 but it doesn't always have all the features I look for when taking photos. Well Olympus recently launched their "OLYMPUS PEN DIGITAL E-P2". Which judging by the specs might be the ideal carry around camera for me. I've got my tax refund in hand but still not sure if I want to spend it all on the E-P2 kit which is roughly $1200 US MSRP. Or I could spend a fraction of that amount and get a Nikon coolpix or Canon G series. Decisions! Decisions!

jp

P.S. I've attached some sample photos from the E-P2 with built in art filters.

Photographer Products

Well, I did it! I bought Gregg's *Triple Package Deal on Monday which includes: The Ultimate Bounce Card, The New Big-Light Bounce Card & The ABBC Mini-Light Bounce Card. Hopefully with the 3-4 days shipping time I will receive it before Saturday so I may use it for an upcoming birthday party in Milpitas. Otherwise I will definitely use it for Juvenal and Erlin wedding the following weekend. I'll post some samples of the photos when they are available.

jp

Tips & Advice

I found this great article from a friend's blog entry.

I would like to quote (because I agree with his point entirely), "This is a great article that I wish more people have had a chance to read. It's amazing how some people believe that they have built strong connections without following points #2 and #3. I usually find people who have met me already asking for favors. I'm usually willing to help whenever I can but some people are just takers. I hope you all enjoy reading this article as much as I have."

Anyways, the original article is a great read for networking.

jp

Cool Products in the News

Apple finally announced their new tablet product dubbed "Ipad". No doubt a take on their popular "Ipod" and "Iphone" brands. Their not selling it as a notebook or netbook replacement bur rather a personal device, '"Apple sees this as a personal media experience that they can create."'

Whats cool from my personal perspective is this would be ideal for me both for photography and book reading. Photography in that I can use it to show my portfolio of photos to perspective clients. Or heck use it as large digital photo album. Versus carry my brick of laptop that weighs almost 10 pounds with accessories in the bag. Or using it download the latest ebooks like Amazon's kindle which cost about $250 for the cheapest model.

Of course there are other more mundane features like watching movies, listening to music and playing games. I'm excited to see what the actual retail price will be when it launches.

jp

Website Content Update - Cont.

Hurray! I finally got the new photos up on my main photo website. I only had to go to my WindowsXP OS and upload from an old version of IE. So moral of the story is if your using Windows 7, you may not be able to upload your photos on your photobiz website.

jp

website update (postponed)

Well I thought I was going to be able to update the photos on my photography website. I spent the last 6 hours working on photo montages just for this update. However my stupid photography website provider, PhotoBiz, is preventing me from doing any photo updates. In order to upload new photos, you need to login into your account on your internet browser. For 99.99% of internet applications, this is usually easy to do. Not photobiz! I've tried using 4 of the most popular browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome). Not one of them will run the photobiz photo uploader browser application. It was working fine on Jan 4th earlier this month when I used it. But for God knows what reason, its not working today. If I can find a better alternative website provider this year, I'm going to switch asap.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep trying to figure out how to get these photos uploaded.

jp

P.S. Kind of peeved 'cause I spent all day and were looking forward to seeing the new photos on the website~!

Camera Gear & Accessories

Peter Greggs who wrote the recent Canon 1D MkIV review I posted on my blog today, also is the designer for the ABBC Ultimate Bounce Card. If your like me and frustrated with taking flash shots that look flat or overexposed, I'd suggest trying his product. I'm planning on picking one up for some upcoming photo gigs I have in Feb.



jp

Canon in the News - New 1D MkIV DSLR

ProPhoto has a great review of the new Canon 1D. Check it out here.

Two key points to note from the review: Focusing is on par and the High ISO (12800) is amazing. Looks like the engineers at Canon realized something Nikon has been doing for several generation, High ISO/low noise is important to we Pro photographers!

If I could afford it, I would have both Canon and Nikon equipment. The best of both worlds. =)

jp

JPP Daily Photos

Here's a collage I put together for Juvenal and Erlin's Wedding Reception 20x30 print. This is truly a beautiful love story that dates back almost 50 years ago when Juvenal was courting Erlin. More details to come!

jp

JPP Daily Photos

For the past week, California has had a series of fierce winter storms back-to-back. I took these photos during the 2nd of the storms this week. The last 2 photos show the Eastridge Shopping Mall sign on Quimby road had fallen from the 50 MPH winds that morning.

jp

JPP Daily Photos

It's cold out there. Brrrrr! As my friend, Edwin, from the UK reminded me its also very cold in Europe and other parts of the world. In California, the weather actually has been pretty mild. Usually low 30's in the evening and high 40's in the daytime. Which is ironic cause this is one Californian who would love to have snow in the bay area. Even a belated White Christmas. lol.

jp

Angel in the News

Here's a heart warming story I found on MSNBC Video. Especially for all you dog lovers. =)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

jp

Kenna Foster Blog

Kenna has a great post on her blog for the new year. Check it out here or read below.

Right or Wrong-- a thought for the New Year.
There are people who are always looking for (and sometimes discussing) the bad in other people... even in the human race at large. "What's wrong with ____ is ______..."

And there are people who are always seeing the good in everyone, even sometimes when it might seem undeserved.

I know this is obvious... It's important to surround yourself with the latter. It is such a rewarding feeling to be around people who always see your good qualities. Yet, I've sometimes forgotten it. And when I did, I found myself "set up for failure." No matter how hard you try to be your best & show someone your best "you," it will never work if they're looking for what's wrong with you.

I, like most people, ;) am just an imperfect human. If someone's looking for my faults, they WILL find them. So rather than try to play the "hide your faults" game from someone who looks for them, why not just choose to be around those looking for what's RIGHT about you? Soooo much happier!

And yet... ironically, I ALSO had to remind myself yet again, to BE the one looking for good!! Sheesh, really?? That perfectionistic side of me seems constantly to need reminded of when to back down. ;)

Simple formula... Want to see the good in those around you and in humanity? Look for it.

So, my new post-it reminder quote near my computer reads:

"If you're looking for things wrong with people, you'll find them! Everywhere!!

So... don't."

----

truly words to live by. Thanks to Kenna for starting out the new year with a positive thought.

jp

JPP Daily Photos

I did an engagement photo shoot this past Saturday. Whats really special about this shoot as opposed to my past ones is has an almost fairy tale story. The groom has been in love with his intended for well over 47 years. From joining the Navy as young man to follow her to the United States to surviving a previous marriage, they met again late last year. After some flirting and dating, he asked her to marry him. They will be married in February this year. Here are some of the pick from their recent photo session.

jp

First Blogger Post of the New Year

Next to photography, my other passion is reading. Ever since I picked up my first comic book as a kid, it was a natural evolution to go from that to book and magazines. I have a voracious appetite for print material. During college, I often crammed whole novels during the weekend (often to the detriment of my grades!).

Lately I've been having a hard time finding books in my favorite genre, Fantasy/Sci-Fi. I can still read my way through a Newsweek or a Photography magazine. However I still will often go to a Barnes and Nobles or do an amazon/google search for the latest novels of my favorite author. In the last several years, its become a bit of a shocker to find that quite a few of my favorite authors have passed away. With their passing, there is no longer any chance to read sequels or new series. Hence one of the reasons why I am having a hard time finding new novels. Today I started re-reading the first novel from the SeaFort Saga by David Feintuch. Mr. Feintuch passed away in 2006. He had just completed his eighth and final book in the series. With his death, however, the publisher has indicated they have no plans of publishing that final book. What a quandary for any avid read. To read thru the whole series waiting for the finale but prevented because of a untimely death of the author and some unkown reason of his publisher. What makes it worse is Mr. Feintuch is one of the few of my favorite authors that I had the pleasure to exchange emails about my love of his Seafort saga. I hope in the near future that the heirs of Mr. Feintuch will push the his publisher to publish that final book post-humously.

In closing, I'm quoting an intro from Mr. Feintuch that also discusses the topic of his favorite authors who passed away in his lifetime. "I stuck with SF for a long while, but after college I drifted away. My favorite authors were dropping out, dying, or writing stuff that wasn't very good anymore. Heinlein was one. Yes, his last books became talky and preachy. But Glory Road, Farnham's Freehold, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, and of course, Stranger . . . what a legacy."

P.S. In honor of the passing of a great author, David Feintuch....

-jp

Happy New Year!

Wishing all my readers and visitors a prosperous New Year! God Bless you all...!

jp