I'm not sure whether I originally included this image in the Egypt-Jordan set or not.   In any event I think this is one that benefits from the "big" treatment.    Most people have heard or read a great deal about Egypt,  but know little about the neighbouring country (more correctly kingdom) of Jordan.  Jordan has some wonderful desert scenery such as at Wadi Rum where these rock formations poke up through the desert sands.    Camels still roam wild in the area and can be seen in this image.   Those of you who are familiar with the compositional concept of "rule of thirds" should spot one easily.  

Online photo display/storage services,   read the fine print.

      A number of online photo storage and display services are available these days and appear to offer a great deal to the public.  This system is one of them,  a free service where anyone can blog,  interact with others and display photographs or other artwork.    It's a terrific way for people, who may not be computer wizards,  to get involved and be part of an online community.   One other service which has been launched is Adobe's Photo Express system,  where you can upload images with numerous options for display/presentation.  It looks like an interesting concept but the devil may be in the detail,  it pays to read the terms of use agreement to know just what your rights are.    How many people have signed up for the service without reading the following clause;

Paragraph 8a 

"Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.”

      It's an interesting use of words.   It starts out with the disclaimer,  "does not claim ownership of your content"  and then proceeds to give one of the most comprehensive descriptions,  that I've ever seen,  of exactly what ownership is.    It's a case of what someone says vs what they actually mean.    For example;  "I'm not saying you're overweight, however..."   actual meaning... "boy could you lose some weight",       "I don't mean to criticize,  but..."   actual meaning... "I'm about to criticize"     "does not claim ownership...however...."    you get the idea.

      Having read this,  I was prompted to go back and read the terms of use for spaces.live.    Fortunately,  I don't see any such legalistic gotchas in there.  There are suitable clauses relating to copyright protection, privacy, etc.    If you're not familiar with the agreement, this might be an opportune time to go back and read the fineprint.  

KD

www.kevindowie.com

Another shot from last years Egypt trip.   This image was taken from a hot air balloon just outside the town of Luxor.  If you look at the left side of the image you can see the shadow cast by the balloon that I was in at the time.    The image is a panorama formed by stitching several (from memory 5)  images together in photoshop.   

What camera should I use?   

    I had a message recently from someone who's just taken up photography as a hobby and is travelling shortly.   After visiting this site,  she posed several questions.  "What kind of camera do you use?"  "Do you use Photoshop?"  "What advice can you offer?"   and so on.    I won't reproduce my full reply to her here as some of it was specific to her own circumstances,  however some of the general points might be of interest to others....so here goes.   

         I've used a number of different cameras over the years starting out with Pentax 35mm SLRs when I was using film and am now using a Canon 5D digital camera.   Unfortunately a high quality camera like the 5D is expensive and some of the lenses for it can be pricey as well,  but if you're travelling overseas, that's expensive as well so,  it's a matter of figuring out what your priorities are and,  of course,  what you can afford.  Also there are some less expensive cameras which will give some good results as well.

        I also use Photoshop CS3.  It's a really good program,  once again it's expensive but allows you to do a great deal with your pictures,  you can control colour balance, contrast and many other things.   There are other image processing programs available which are less expensive but of course less fully featured.    Eg;  Photoshop Express,  which is a "lite" version of PS CS3 (please note, "lite" is the software industry's mis-spelling, not mine!)  is cheaper but worthwhile.  PS Express is sometimes included as bundled software when you buy a camera or scanner, bonus!        

      Also available is a program called "The Gimp".  This program is free and attempts to emulate many of the features of Photoshop.   Being a free program,  the people who designed it obviously don't have the budget that a major company like Adobe has,  and as a result it is like an outdated version of PS.  I personally tried to use it a few years ago and didn't have a lot of success with it,  but hey,  they may have improved it since then and given that it's free what have you got to lose?  

     The single best piece of advice I can offer is to just go out and take a lot of pictures and really learn all the controls on you camera,  so that using it becomes second nature to you.   A lot of people make the mistake of buying a camera shortly before they go on holiday and then spend much of their holiday trying to learn how the camera works, rather than taking good pictures.  

      The quality of your pictures will depend not just on the equipment you use but more so on your ability to "see a photo" and interpret what's in front of you.     There's an interesting discussion about this subject on the internet,  you can check out the arguments using the links below. 

      In addition to the links at the foot of this article,  I also have further links to Photoshop and Photography sites at my other website at   www.kevindowie.com    If you haven't looked at it yet,  I encourage you to check it out.    Also I have a page of explanations where I tell you where, when, how and why I took some of my pictures,  which you might find helpful.

     If anyone has any more questions,  or wishes to comment,  then fire away.

cheers  KD.

Links;      "The choice of camera doesn't matter"   .... http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm

               "The choice of camera does matter"  ....  http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/cameras-matter.shtml 

Some image processing options;        http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/          http://www.gimp.org/

As part of "bigger is better" approach I'm reposting some of my Egypt-Jordan images.   Thought I'd start here with a shot taken on the Nile near Aswan.  I think this is one of my better shots from that trip and deserves a little more prominence,  so I'm giving it the "big" treatment.   Feluccas are sailing boats which have been used on the Nile for thousands of years,  the design has hardly changed in that time.   As the title suggests,  this shot was taken late in the day in pleasing light,  from the deck of another felucca.

Enjoy,  KD

www.kevindowie.com

I have updated my main website.   A series of Nepal photos are now on display in both static form and as a slideshow presentation and can be accessed under the "image galleries" link.   There are over 150 images in total,  most of them not previously published.   Here's the link  www.kevindowie.com

enjoy  KD

    For years I've been taking photographs,  now days with digital,  but in years gone by with film of course.   With digital the raw image is recorded with its colour values and we can either present it in colour or it's a simple matter to present it as black and white.  In the film days you could use either colour film or black and white and go from there.  It was possible to create a B&W image from a colour negative or transparency but involved a fair bit of work in the traditional chemical darkroom.   I generally chose to use colour negative film in the belief that if I wanted I could,  with some effort,  get a B&W output if I wished.  At the time digital was not on the horizon.

     Now with the ready availability of good scanners and computer software,  revisiting the old negs and producing a B&W image is simple.    And so I present two versions of the one image,  one colour and the other given a toned B&W treatment.    Which appeals more to you?   Enjoy.    

                                                        Mountain cloudscape, Nepal

                                                        Mountain cloudscape, Nepal   toned B&W.

Well folks here goes,  as previously promised (threatened),  a larger image included in a blog entry.

    Regular readers will recognise the image "bats leaving Deer Cave, Borneo".     For those who've just found this site refer to the previous blog entry for the background.     Enjoy,  KD