Horse in Black & White, shot on film

Another one from that first roll of film through the Nikon F3. I love the look.

Eagle in Black & White, shot on film

Another photograph from my first roll of TRI-X 400 shot on the Nikon F3. I explained why I'm posting photographs of animals all of a sudden in a previous post, so I won't repeat myself here. I'll just say shooting film again has been a lot of fun.

More film photographs - A Rhinoceros

This is shot number 5 from the first roll of film I ran through the Nikon F3. Shot's 2, 3, and 4 were just more zebras, but came out pretty lame.

If you've been reading my site you may be wondering why the heck I'm suddenly posting photographs of animals. It's a good question, since I haven't done it before and I'm by no means an animal or wildlife photographer. I actually think I quite suck at it.

However, there's a good reason for it.

As you may know, about 18 months ago I had a baby girl and I photographed the birth. That experience made me realise that I didn't shoot my family and friends enough, and since then I've been obsessed with photographing every single moment. Sometimes I go for a walk with her and, since I carry my camera everywhere, point at things and ask her if she want's a photo of it. She usually says yes.

I also read books to her at night, and a bunch of them are about animals. She's learning the sounds they make by looking at the photographs.

So, I took her to a zoo and started firing away. I'm now thinking I should do a bunch of them and make a book of animals to show her. So here we are. Shooting a bunch of animals for her.

First shot with the Nikon F3

Not the best photograph, but it's shot number 1 from the Nikon F3 I won from Rob Boyer, so I decided to publish it. It was shot with TRI-X 400 and scanned at a cheap lab. I have a few other photographs that don't completely suck from that roll that I'll post in the next few days.

I'll also expand on the experience on shooting film on the F3, but for now I'll just say I love it. It's a great camera and I really enjoy shooting film again. There really is something about shooting film that's difficult to explain. It makes me shoot more deliberately as every shot counts, so going through a roll of film could take a while because I don't want to "waste" shots. Of course, that doesn't mean that every shot end up being a great photograph. Far from it. But it does mean that at least every one could be a great one instead of just firing a thousand shots without giving it much thought.

Or maybe I'm just being way too cautious and should just experiment and allow myself to screw up intentionally more often.

Gabriella for People of the Globe

Gabriella from Sweeden for People of the GlobeI'm sure I've posted this one before. It's one of the earliest photographs I did for the People of the Globe project back in 2006. I've shot with Gabriella after this, but for some reason I really like this photo.

Maree for People of the Globe

Maree from Croatia for People of the GlobeI'm changing the layout and design of my website to accommodate bigger photographs. Looking at the visitor statistics I can see that by far, most people coming here are using bigger monitors so I thought it was time for a change.

Speaking of change, I'm also thinking about changing the direction of the site. I'll still write about Aperture and other photography related things, but I'll be posting more of my photographs more regularly. I've written about how I feel about sharing more of what you do and not only your very best work. I wrote that in January 2010 and ended with "I still don't know". Well, it's been over a year and I still don't know exactly how I feel. So I've decided I'll be posting a lot more and just see what happens.

1,000 downloads of my Black & White Aperture presets

I just checked the analytics for this site and realised my black & white presets for Apple Aperture have been downloaded just over 1,000 times.

I find that amazing.

If you're one of them please send me a note or tweet me and let me know what you think. And if you've used them on your own photographs send me a link. I'd love to see what people have done with them.

Thanks to everyone who's downloaded them!

Eugenia for People of the Globe

Eugenia from Ukraine for People of the GlobeI'm not sure why, but I really like this photograph. It's not anything I did though, it's all her. Eugenia is beautiful, but there's something else. Her features are really unique and her attitude in this photograph is amazing. I've shot with her twice and both times have been great.

How to install Apple Aperture 3 presets

Step by step instructions on how to install presets in Apple Aperture 3

Click to read more ...

Another black and white landscape

As part of my new view on sharing a lot more of the photography I do, I decided to start posting some of my black and white landscapes. I've only posted one before this one so far, but I do want to show a few more.