Get All Your Media News in One Place
There is quite a bit of media news to keep up with these days, what with the constant threat of local newspapers become a thing of the 20th century, new pay models being introduced by major online news sites like the Wall Street Journal, just to keep afloat, online video becoming the new “television”…the list goes on.

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Film4 HD to launch on Virgin Media
Virgin Media has announced the upcoming launch of Film4 HD and E4 HD on its digital TV platform. Virgin’s digital TV customers will be the first to watch Film4 in high definition (HD).

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Advertising Association submits recommendations for extended digital regulation
The Advertising Association (AA) has submitted the industry’s recommendations to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), for the extension of the non-broadcast Advertising Code in digital media, which will be administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

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Google’s digital library faces key hurdles
Google’s ambitious plans to create a vast digital library of millions of old books may hinge on the resolution of three key issues now being considered by a federal judge in New York.

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Helping Teens Learn in an Era of Digital Overload: A Panel Discussion Featuring Experts on Teens and Technology at …
Orinda Academy , a private, non-profit, co-educational day school serving grades 7-12, in conjunction with Student Organizational Services , will present a panel discussion, Helping Teens Learn in an Era of Digital Overload.

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MCOT optimistic new media will generate B500m this year
MCOT Plc, the operator of Modern Nine TV, expects its new media business will generate revenue of at least 500 million baht this year.

Read more on Bangkok Post – Thailand’s English news

New EIAA ‘Insight Council’ connects media owners with agencies
The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has launched the EIAA Insight Council and the expansion of its acclaimed Mediascope Europe media consumption study in 2010.

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Wieden Hires Poke’s Iain Tait for Digital
Wieden + Kennedy is bringing on a founder of respected British digital shop Poke.

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Digital Economy Bill custodian Sion Simon steps down
The government’s Digital Economy Bill went into a state of limbo today, as the minister responsible for steering the legislation through parliament Creative Industries Minister Sion Simon – announced he is to step down to run for Mayor of Birmingham.

Read more on V3.co.uk via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

Wine marketers to learn how to surf the digital wave at USB Executive Development
The on-line digital wave has had an especially profound effect on the local and international wine communities.

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Director: Andrew Oh DP: Francisco Bulgarelli Gaffer/Operator: Daniel Kanes Cast: Lauren R. Gilmore, Bianca Bulgarelli Camera: Canon 5D mark II Camera Accessories: Redrock Micro – www.redrockmicro.com

Snapixel Sees Growth in High Resolution Photography
Advances in digital SLR technology, driven by Canon and Nikon, have propelled the quality of high resolution photography to new levels on Snapixel.

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Share Float
Gavin McClurg traded job-hopping for the corner office aboard a 57-foot catamaran.

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Reed takes walk on mild side in photo exhibit
Lou Reed is New York.Grit, he breathes it.Teeming with life, he lives it.Noisy and honking and screaming and loud, he loves it.But the rock icon — one of the few artists, like Andy Warhol, who defined frenetic ‘60s New York, when pop culture and punk rock would clash — takes himself out of the city in his latest photography exhibit, “Romanticism.”Far and away from the madness and the concrete …

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Chivas Studio comes to Kolkata with Aman, Ayaan Ali Khan, Manish Malhotra
Kolkata, Jan 15 : Aman and Ayaan Ali Khan and Manish Malhotra will participate in The Chivas Sudio, a 2-day event on photography, sculpture, jewel craft, music, fashion and mixology, here this weekend.

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Learn cartooning in Long Valley
WASHINGTON TWP. – Cartooning, chess and photography are workshops planned in coming weeks by the Long Valley Arts program.

Read more on Observer-Tribune

So why is this such an important element of an image? Hello! It is the reason you are taking the shot. Often amateur photographers want to get as much of a scene in the photo as possible. They want to remember everything at once despite the fact that the resulting image is cluttered, confusing and downright average. Many of our photograph albums are cluttered with images that aren’t memorable and the subjects are indistinguishable from all the other elements. What then is the solution to this problem? What can be do to solve the dilemma? The news is good and the solution very simple. Here goes, some tips to make your subject the star of the photo.

1. Be selective

Take a careful look at the scene and decide immediately what is most important to you. Try this little exercise. Picture yourself in 20 years time flipping through an album of precious memories. Perhaps the person you are remembering has passed away. What would you like to change about the image to make it more memorable? If you could go back in time, what would you have excluded from the photo? You are getting the opportunity to decide now what will be the memory later. That leads to the next point.

2. Exclude Clutter

Clutter is a part of everyday lives but we don’t want to remember it in our photos. All of us have this problem after we have taken a photo. We leave too much in the photo that is not necessary. Getting back to the previous point. In that precious photo what do you consider unimportant and not necessary in the image? These are items you want to exclude and take the opportunity to include more of what you really want into the image. Again this leads us on to the next point.

3. Give your subject most of the attention

In order to do this you must make the subject the centre of attention. Pretend it’s a Hollywood star and make it the star attraction. All of sudden the subject becomes more prominent and anyone can tell who or what the subject of the photo is. It should hit you front and centre and say without confusion, “I am the subject”. If the subject doesn’t shout “I’m the subject” then it’s not the subject.

4. Get in closer

By doing this you automatically do point 2. Exclude all the clutter and unnecessary elements of an image. Things that you really don’t want to remember in ten or twenty years time. This should be logical. All of us dream of better cameras or lenses that will get us closer to the subject. So, use your feet. Walk in closer and fill the image with your subject or just a part of the subject, unless of course it’s a lion in a safari park. Most times you can use your feet to get in closer and this will immediately improve the image and make your subject more prominent.

5. Change your perpective

In simple terms this means move around and find a different location from where you can shoot, or, a more interesting angle. Changing your angle from right in front of your subject to a lower or higher viewpoint will give a completely different perspective. Lie on your stomach or back, climb a ladder or go down some stairs giving you a vantage point for great images.

Key to great subject placement is thinking outside the box. And key to this is plain old thinking. Give more thought and time to your image before clicking the shutter button. The old saying that goes, “time is money” can be equated to “time is quality”. The more time and effort you put into your photography will result in better quality images. There are a number of other ways you can improve your image but by putting into practice these simple principles will give you immediate photographic success.

Most new digital photography beginners use their cameras on automatic. Is it because they don’t know any better or just easier keeping it on automatic? Maybe it’s a combination of both. But, effective use of shutter speed can dramatically improve your images. Here’s how.

Sometimes it’s too scary to take the setting off automatic and switch it to the Tv setting. Tv is the shutter speed setting and stands for time value as opposed to the other setter, Av which stands for aperture value. The problem most of us have when starting out is that if we change from automatic we’ll miss or mess up important photos that cannot be recaptured. There is any easy answer to this. Practise. Don’t try using the setting unless you are prepared to take the time to practise.

So what is shutter speed? It’s a simple answer. It’s the amount of time the shutter remains open when pressing the shutter button.

1. Shutter speed is measured in seconds

This is true but most of the time we are shooting in fractions of seconds e.g. 1/250th, 1/100th or even as low as 1/30th of a second. The bigger the number the shorter the time it is open. 1/1000th is open less than 1/60th of a second.

2. Slow shutter speeds need a tripod

If you are shooting anything lower than 1/60th of a second you will probably need a tripod or some support like leaning against a wall or post. A bean bag on top of something is a good alternative to a tripod.

3. Using your lens as a guide

What I mean by this is that if you are using a 100mm lens or the 100mm end of a zoom lens, use this as a guide to the minimum shutter speed i.e. 1/100th of a second would be you slowest speed you could use when shooting with a 100mm lens.

4. Freezing movement

In order to freeze movement in your images you need to use a fast shutter speed such as 1/250th, 1/500th or even 1/1000th of a second. The speed you decide on will be determined by the speed of the action. An athlete would be slower than, say a motorcycle racer.

5. Blurring an image

Sometimes you will want to intentionally blur an image to create the effect of speed. This is opposite to freezing movement so you’ll need to use a shutter speed of below 1/60th of a second. This basically allows the subject to travel across your image while the shutter is open. Faster subjects will create more blur. The key here is to experiment with the subject you want to capture.

6. Shooting in low light

When shooting in low light or taking shots of lighted buildings you need to reduce your shutter quite significantly. Most times you will be shooting in full seconds and need to use the B or bulb setting which allows you to keep the shutter open until you release it.

Remember that you cannot alter shutter speed in isolation to other settings such as aperture and ISO. The great thing about the TV setting is that when you alter the shutter speed, the camera automatically sets the correct aperture for you. In most cases this works but you need to realise that when the light is low and you are using a faster speed, you might not have a big enough aperture setting to let in sufficient light. You may need to compromise on your shutter speed and use a slower setting to capture the shot.

So there are limitations but practise will allow you to learn what works and what doesn’t. Experiment as much as possible to gain the experience to use your shutter speed setting at an important event. Effective use of shutter speed will dramatically improve you photography. Happy shooting.

Starting out with any new venture, or for that fact resurrecting an old venture, there are always the questions where do I start or how do I start? Although the urge is there to try something big, starting at the beginning is essential. Learn to take baby steps first.

If you’ve watched the old time classic movie the Sound of Music, it’s “let’s start at the very beginning”. A very good place to start. So beginning your photography journey you need to look at three fundamentals in order to get going.

1. Get to know your camera

Getting to know your camera is essential for your beginning in photography. A workman who is not competent with the tools of the trade is not going to get very far. I am not talking here of every single little feature but rather all the major features, settings or controls. You need to be able to operate without thinking and often times while you aren’t looking at the controls. Know where they are by feel so that as you’re looking through the viewfinder you can change settings automatically. Do this little exercise and you’ll get to know them fast. Go through your manual and go through each setting on your camera. When you are finished go through it again; this time checking off all the settings you know. Then go through the manual again and learn those settings that you are not sure of. By logically working through your manual and getting to know the camera’s features will be invaluable as you learn photography.

2. Shoot regularly and on every occasion

One of the major benefits digital photography has given us is the ability to take photos without the cost restrictions of film. The problem is that people use this to the detriment of calculated and thoughtful composition of their photos. But if used correctly, digital gives the ability to keep shooting without any constraints. The reason I see that shooting regularly is key to learning is because practise does make perfect. Through trial and error we learn about most things in life. Sometimes you do get a lucky shot amongst the rapidfire shooting sprees but this is the exception. The famous golfer Gary Player always said, “the harder I practise, the luckier I get.” Use every ocasion to practise and then compare images you have taken previously. Evaluation helps to examine your photos and find out where you can improve. But don’t just stop there. Go out and improve the areas you need to and practise more in the areas where you have deficiencies.

3. Focus on the fundamentals of photography

Learning the basics properly is key to anything you do. If you give yourself a good foundation and learn the fundamentals you are going to get off on the right foot and not make the basic errors which need correcting. Find a really good book or e-course take each element of photography and apply it. Don’t try learning a bunch of keys and attempt put them all into one photo at once. Learn good composition before trying to shoot action photos. Rome wasn’t built in a day but our instant society has taught us that we can everything and have it now. It doesn’t work like that with photography. It has step be a logical progression as you learn one step then apply it and move on to the next step. Don’t forget to keep on revising what you have learnt as you need to build on to the foundation of the previous step and so on.

These three steps are just some basics to get you going. There are many others that you gradually need to incorporate into your photograhic learning journey. It’s not all going to happen at once so you need to grasp just a few of the basics to start growing.

The world has gone digital crazy. With many homes having multiple digital camera owners you can’t move without seeing someone taking a digital snap. And the operative word here is a snapshot. Not much thought, creativity or photographic composition. Just lots and lots of digital pollution cramming the millions of hard drives, DVDs and memory cards. Digital has enabled people to take more low quality, thoughtless snapshots.

Digital photography could see the death of creativity in photography in general. Why such a harsh statement? Here’s why:

1. Lack of thought

As a film photographer the consumable costs of photography were much higher. This forced us to think and carefully consider each shot. There was a greater thought process. Using a motor drive for taking multiple shots was for the press photographers who could afford take thirty six images in a few seconds. For the rest of us we had to think more before pressing the button.

2. The Shakespeare effect

This is the evolutionary idea that if you give a roomful of monkeys a typewriter each and enough time, they will eventually produce a work equal in quality to Shakespeare. There is a similar mindset among digital photographers that if they shoot enough photos, somewhere amongst the thousands will be quality images. You have as much chance as that happening as a monkey.

3. Drive by shooting syndrome

This is similar to the lack of thought in taking a photo. Because of the multiple shot feature in digital cameras and the low cost of digital photography, it’s quick an easy to take an image. Just like a drive by shooting the camera is pointed in the general direction of the subject and a bunch of images is taken. Then you move on to the next target and fire away again. So what’s the answer? Plain and simple slow down, right down and smell the roses as the saying goes. The creative process is methodical and well thought out. You need to be able to observe, think and then take action. Because digital photography is so quick, cheap and easy the principles and techniques of photography tend to get sidelined.

Here are a few steps to encourage your creative process.

1. Make or allocate time for your creative process

Creativity won’t be hurried. At times it may come to you quickly but this is the exception rather than the norm. So sit down and absorb the environment. Observe your surroundings, subjects and any activity. Let it become a part of you.

2. Be selective

Find something that turns you or rather your creativity on. If this is colour then focus on the rich hues and shades. If it’s an object or subject observe it carefully in relation to it’s surroundings. Now close your eyes and picture the final image.

3. Change your position or viewpoint

By looking at your subject from different angles, heights or positions the image will change as the subject changes in relation to its environment. All of a sudden you see things you never would have seen.

4. Try something different.

Shoot a traditional tourist shot of your subject and then look for a shot that is completely different, one you’ve never seen before. Make it unrecognisable. Hire a boat and shoot from the the water. Go to the top of a nearby building or if you’re adventurous climb a tree or lie down on your back.

Creativity is often just doing something different. Something that hasn’t been done before. The key element that I have found to creativity is time. So take your time and smell the roses. Your photography will never be the same again. Put photography, creative photography back into digital photography.

The first thing that any budding photographer needs to learn are the fundamentals of photography starting with the basics. Get these under your belt quickly and you have already won half the battle. So, what needs to happen to get you going as a beginner with your first digital camera? Let’s take a look at my top seven.

1. Equipment

It’s not all about equipment. Don’t go rushing out to buy expensive equipment without knowing what you need. A keen sales person will sell you as far as your wallet or credit card will take you. Wait until you know what you need and what you like and match these desires with the right equipment.

2. Decide on the type of shots you’d like to shoot

A good idea is to browse the internet photo galleries, look in magazines or visit your local library to get an idea of what type of photo you really like. Try it out with your camera and see if you are able to, or, want to persevere until you can. Once you’ve made a list plan to go out and shoot on a regular basis. It’s practise that makes perfect. Stick to it until you master your genre. Only then start looking for the equipment to match your area of interest.

3. Decide on a structured learning plan

Find out what you’d like to learn and what you need to learn in order to shoot the type of photos that interest you. For example, macro and nature photography is a more specialised art form and there are a number of techniques and skills to learn, as well as equipment you’ll need to buy. Research it on the internet, read books and if possible take a course on macro or close up photography.

4. Take photos often

If you are not regularly shooting images you are not going to grow in your skills and abilities. Set yourself assignments based on what you are studying. Of course, in a structured course you will be given assignments. A photo a day keeps the creativity flowing and helps you to keep motivated. I did an assignment once taking a 100 photos of the same subject from a host of different angles. It gave my photography an unexpected boost.

5. Learn your camera’s settings

Getting to know your camera is paramount if you want to learn to take great photos and the best way to do this is by reading your manual. Like I should be telling you this. I am the last one who reads a manual. But, if you do it in a structured way you’ll be amazed at how quickly you get to know your camera. The way I did it was to go through the manual highlighting everything I already knew about it. Then I went back through the manual reading up on each section I didn’t know, practising as I went along. Once I got to know it I was amazed at how much more I could do with my camera. The key is to experiment.

6. Keep your camera with you

Take every opportunity to get a great shot. Whenever you see something that would make a great photo, shoot it. I have often wished that I had taken my camera with me and got an amazing shot. If you don’t have it with you, you won’t get the shot.

7. Buy a tripod

Besides my camera, my tripod is the most important piece of kit in my equipment bag. There are shots you can only get if your camera is steady. The sharpness of your shots will improve dramatically. If the pros use them then why not the amateurs?

As you begin your photography journey, work at learning in a structured way so that the fundamentals of photography become second nature. Photography should be fun but your learning process needs to be serious. Happy shooting!

My first words to you as you consider the world of wedding photography is, “Are you stark staring crazy?”. Why would anyone want to enter this world? There are just so many things that can go wrong and this is one area of photography that cannot be reshot without redoing the whole event which is impossible. You need nerves of steel and the patience of Job.

Now if you have considered all the pitfalls and weighed the pros and cons and have decided that you are one of the chosen few and can stand the pressure, here are some pointers that will get you to the top of your game.

1. Learn digital photography

This may sound simple and quite broad. If you aren’t an accomplished photographer then learn photography and acquire the skills that you need to shoot great photos. If you are an accomplished film photographer learn all you can about digital photography. You need to function as a digital photographer knowing each of the skills necessary to make you successful. For example, know the limitations and benefits of shooting with digital and what can be improved or rescued in the digital darkroom. You will make mistakes and there will be unforseen problems and you need to know what can be done before you have a heart attack and call the bride with bad news. At my own wedding half the photos were lost because of film problems. A fair amount would’ve been rescued if it had been digital.

2. Learn the basics of wedding photography

There are two routes to go with this point. Firstly, the self taught route. Buy wedding magazines and books on wedding photography and study them religiously. Get to know the types of shot people like and the scenes they prefer. Great ideas come from wedding magazines. If you want to cheat a little go to a wedding photographer and ask to see their work or look at it on the walls of their studio or shop. The second route is more difficult. Offer your services to a wedding photographer as an assistant. Once you are a wedding photographer you’ll realise how invaluable and assistant can be. Here you’ll learn many tricks and techniques and will pick up tips that you won’t read about in books. The key here again is to learn wedding photography on the job.

3. Plan and practise

More preparation than any other area of photography needs to go into a wedding shoot and planning is essential. Your biggest hurdle is the transition from other genres of photography to wedding photography. When you actually do the shoot you should know every scene, lighting condition, location and sequence of shots. Some photographers go as far as preparing a shot sheet, a sketch of every shot at every location, so that they know one shot after the other and what is coming up next. Each camera setting is noted next to the shot. Maybe a bit overkill to some but the risk of failure is greatly reduced.

4. Dive into the deep end

Offer your services free to friends and family for all kinds of occasions as an unofficial photographer. If you’re brave enough offer to do a wedding or ask permission to take photos in addition to the photographer they have engaged. Get the main photographer’s permission and don’t get in the way. What the experience will do is allow you to learn the best exposures, lighting conditions and using a flash on a regular basis. Nothing helps better than experience and this helps you with the transition to bigger things.

Wedding photography can be a really profitable business if your nerves can take the pressure. It is a very competitive form of photography and many offer cut throat prices. Don’t aim at just average but rather work at acquiring unique skills that will set you apart from the others. The final product should be the deciding factor and not the person’s wallet.

The bottom line with any type of photography is learning the skills and developing your abilities as a photographer. Learn more about photography and continue adding to your skills basket in becoming an accomplished wedding photographer.