Outing at the Park

We walked over to Serra park in Sunnyvale this past weekend with the kids and had a fun time! I took the Nikon beast (Nikkor AF-S 28-70 f/2.8 ED) lens with me and had some fun shooting the kids! Laura loves the monkey bars - so much that she has blisters on her hands! Henry was totally goofy and running around everywhere! We gathered up leaves to bring home and had fun with those as well. Always great to share a few nice pics! The whole gallery is located here. The sun was low and getting ready to set allowing me to capture their faces with only the natural sun glow and awesome bokeh with the 2.8 lens! Wow... they keep growing up! Enjoy! John

Happy Halloween from Sunnyvale California

With the kids now 3 and 5, Halloween has been up and coming on the family calendar for weeks now! Laura had her Halloween carnival at the elementary school and then the countdown started until we were going TRICK OR TREATING!!! The threat of rain was on us for the entire day, but we lucked out and didn't have any. Here is a shot of the gang heading out for Halloween! Those are my three on the left! Laura is a kitty cat, Henry is a jumping rabbit and Mary is the sheriff! Now -- time for my cut of the candy!! Cheers, John

Nikon should add Video to the D300 and D3!

I have been shooting with the Nikon D300 and absolutely love it. It is a real solid camera, low noise, great features. Nikon recently introduced the D90 and added one cool feature - 720P video! Since the D300 and D90 are VERY similar cameras, Nikon SHOULD be able to add 720P video to the D300 and D3! Especially in light of the new Canon 5D mark II also having video. Nikon has been awesome at being competitive recently. They should keep pushing the edge! Since companies are not able to add major features to their products for free (due to revenue recognition issues - this is why Apple defers revenue for the iPhone), I would be happy to pay Nikon to add the feature. Nikon would win with this - they already have my $$$$$$ for the camera, and now they could get another $100?!? out of me for this new feature. This is NEW money that Nikon would have never seen - it isn't like I am going to go out and purchase a new camera for this feature. I already paid $1800 for this camera! I know that new features come out every day - but when you pay $1800 for a camera and a few months later a $999 camera has an awesome feature, you have to think of your installed base. Give Nikon early adopters something we can use! This is called incremental revenue. Come on Nikon!

Any one else? What do you think!? Nikon should get with the plan.
Enjoy
John

Vote for my Nature's Firefalls for the Aperture Nature Workshop Contest

I have entered my Nature's Firefall photo in the Aperture Nature Workshop Contest again at Photrade. This is a NEW contest with a possible opportunity to go shoot with pro's in Yellowstone National Park. I haven't been there but would LOVE to go. Please vote for my photo if you like it. Thanks for your support. I promise to share all the stories and photos with you should I win! You will need to create and account to vote, but that should be easy to do! Thanks! John

Vote for my photo!vote

(edit - It turns out it is actually to go to YOSEMITE!! yay!)

Back from Yosemite and Mono Lake in Fall

I just spent 5 days shooting up in Yosemite and Mono Lake looking for Fall Colors. I will post pictures shortly! The fall colors are running a little lake this year. On top of that, it was 90 degrees when I left Sunnyvale and a cold front came through dumping 6 inches of snow in the mono lake area and drove temperatures down to a high of 30! It was a little cold. Why was I up there? I was talking a workshop from Michael Frye through the Ansel Adams gallery in Yosemite. It was a fantastic course with both shooting and lightroom/photoshop instruction. I picked up quite a few new things and really appreciated the 1-1 instruction from Michael and his two other assistants, Robert and retired park ranger Mike Osbourne. More stories from that later after I get the pictures posted!

Enjoy!
John

Apple releases new MacBooks and Macbook Pro's!

Some pretty sleak new laptops were introduced by Apple this week. I use macs when I work on my photography and having some horsepower to work on photos is essential these days. Working with RAW files in Lightroom and Photoshop, creating panoramas, creating multiple image compilations, the speed of your mac really helps. I think I will need to look at getting one of those in the next year :-) Or, feel free to purchase 5 of my photographs and I can move that up sooner! Enjoy! John

Vote for "Nature's Firefalls for the Aperture Nature Photography Workshop Contest

I submitted my "Nature's Firefall" image for the Aperture Nature Photography Workshop Contest. Please vote for my picture so I can have a chance to win a workshop tour to more national parks!

Vote for my photo!vote

Copyright Photography

I ran across this link on a friend of mines Flickr site (Deborah Lattimore) which reminded me to share this. All of my photographs are subject to US Copyright laws, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. To do so, you need to file them with the US Copyright office. Here is a link to the forms.

Safe shooting and protecting your images!
John

Great Photography Podcast - This Week in Photography

Having an iPhone makes listening and watching podcasts VERY enjoyable! I used to just listen to them and now I just load them up. One of my favorites that I listen to now and recommend to any budding or professional photographer to listen to is "This Week in Photography" It really has a nice array of commentary, chat about new cameras of all sorts (not just the expensive ones I can't afford), great tips, great guest speakers talking about techniques or products. The hosts, Scott and Alex, really have a great show here. btw - I don't receive any compensation for saying this!

For those of you who don't know-- you don't need an ipod to listen to a podcast. Just download iTunes and you can 'subscribe' to the podcast directly in iTunes. It will download, automatically update when there is a new one and is all you need. I listen to my podcasts with my iphone connected to my car stereo via a cassette adapter. It works great.

Here is a great tip on there website called "Background, Background, Background." I love the quote from the site "It was my way of reminding them that the best subject in the world, placed in front of a crappy background, leads to a crappy photo." - I really wish someone had told me this sooner!


Check out "This Week in Photography" and tell them John Harrison Photography sent you!

Enjoy
John

Pacific Art League Gallery Palo Alto California Exhibitions for July

The Pacific Art League just finished up the June Landscape exhibits with over 65 pieces. My 24x32" "Nature's Firefall" took second place, and my "Last Images of The Grant Road Farm" took third! I was pretty excited!!


This months exhibition is "Abstracts." There are over 100 pieces on display. I am exhibiting 5 pieces this month including some of my Hard Textures and Colors collection. For more information on the exhibit, check out the Pacific Art League website.