1. Photographer Spotlight: Samantha Tran

    Samantha Tran is a 26 years old photograper based in Texas where she lives with her husband. The notion that to be a photographer you needed a degree has long been erased from her mind as she’s taken advantage of online tutorials, blogs, books and inspiration from Flickr to come to the realization that all you need is the desire and passion to become one. Her dream job would involve traveling the world to take awesome photographs of her experience.

    1. How would you define your photographic style?

    Since I try to soak up everything photography, I don’t really know that I have a particular style. Which honestly sums up my whole life. I am one of those people that will try to go in every direction all at once. I’m extremely eclectic. I am indecisive but picky I think that comes through in my photography. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I don’t know if that constitutes a “style”.

    I like color and I like beauty. I like motion and I like stills. I like photo manipulation and I like straight out of the camera. I have tried all the styles I come across, portraiture, landscapes, black and white, high key, low key, heavy photoshop, night shots, flowers, animals, macro, underwater…you name it, I have either tried it or plan to. Change keeps you on your toes. It keeps things interesting. There you go, that’s my style: Interesting.

    2. What does your camera equipment consist of?

    Since I have only been doing photography for a little over a year now, I don’t have quite as much as some do, but I love what I have.

    My main camera is my Sony A700. I have three lenses for it. A telephoto (18-200mm/f3.5-6.3) a macro (50mm/f2.8) and a wide angle (20mm/f2.8). I also have a remote, the external HVL-F42AM flash, and a QSX 9502TM Sunpak tripod.

    I also use the Sony H3 (usually for travel since I have not found a smaller tripod) and my new underwater camera the Canon D10 (not pictured, since I had to take a photo of my photo equipment…I wasn’t sure how everyone else did this.

    3. What’s your post-production software of choice?

    I use only Photoshop. I have heard great things about other software like Lightroom, but I have yet to tackle it. In part because I don’t have it. Photoshop is an amazing program that I am understanding a teeny tiny bit more every day. I believe it’s possibilities are almost endless! Or maybe I’m just a newbie.

    4. Are you considering any equipment upgrades in the future?

    I would love to upgrade to the A900 at some point, and I also know that Sony has another, sleeker, alpha NEX line that I am highly interested in. That could replace my H3 at some point. I would also like a Carl Zeiss lens.

    5. Share with us your proudest photograph.

    Haha! You DO realize that you are asking an extremely indecisive person, to be decisive, on the spot…right? Ok, I suppose if I HAD to choose my proudest photo it would be:

    Sometimes...... you're all you've got.

    This photo marked the first time, for me, that I really executed a vision I had in my head, perfectly, using all the techniques in Photoshop and general photo composition that I had learned up to that point. It’s a self portrait and means a lot to me. It made me very proud and I felt very accomplished.

    Explore the Series

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    1 year ago  /  1 note

  2. It’s Those Select Few

    I’m always been mindful that if I were to devote myself to writing strictly photography based content, I would perhaps reach a much wider audience but my intention with this blog has never been to try to replicate better material than what’s already out there.

    I like to focus more on the personal experiences through my writing and having the ability to weave my photographs into any of it has become the perfect structure to represent me and what I want this site to become.

    There are a few readers that will stick around more than others and that small percentage that invest the time to probe deeper and discover what else to expect from this site, those are the ones that I have felt I’ve made a quality connection with already.

    I can’t recall specifically where I came across this statement but it said that “if it takes you longer than 10 seconds to explain your blog, then you probably haven’t made sure it’s conveying the right message as to why it exist in the first place.”

    My byline says it all. I’m a blogger, I’m a web enthusiast and I’m an avid photographer. That’s what this blog is about with a strong emphasis on photography and yet sometimes not just limited to that.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the sites I will always feel a stronger connection with are the ones that bundle their topic with a first-class personal story and whether I write about how much I enjoyed a movie, it just won’t be another film review as I will always strive to instill some personal meaning to it. Case and point.

    I continually come across friends that stumble about my site via Facebook and they inquire what my site is about, hence this post. Is it for everyone? Perhaps not but I can tell you that it’s incredibly empowering to be able to relate truthfully about anything as long as you’re enthusiastic about it and even more so when you consider that people may actually read it.

    You can never please everyone with what you write but even more important is remembering that you don’t have to. It’s those select few that matter.

    1 year ago  /  Notes

  3. You are a photographer when.... →

    I’m a member of the Nikon D90 Group on Flickr and a post was published where subcribers were asked to respond to the statement that “you are a photographer when…”

    There’s 2 pages worth of responses so far and I selected my favorite 10 in no particular order. What makes these special and comical is that some very easily apply to me.

    1. People expect you to take pictures at every event you attend and they expect you to do it for free.
    2. You change the light bulbs in your bedroom to get a better white balance.
    3. You get up at 5:45 AM when on vacation and then come back and sleep until just before sunset.
    4. When your camera gear is worth more then your car.
    5. When going on a trip you pack your camera bag 2 days before the suitcase and always leave space for the tripod.
    6. You look at photos and wonder what their ISO, f-stop, and shutter were and if they used Flash or not.
    7. When you wake up at 5am on a day off and can’t sleep because of all the beutiful light going to waste.
    8. When no one in the family recognizes you without a black box in front of your face.
    9. When you take good shot and in a hurry to upload on Flickr so that you get comments from your friends and contacts.
    10. You are a photographer when ….you buy a camera.

    1 year ago  /  2 notes

  4. Some Summer Changes

    Had I waited 3 more months, a complete year of fighting the urge to redesign would have been fulfilled but apparently I failed to hold off that long.

    With lack of time being the foremost reason for not redesigning, the decision was made to stay away from any changes so that I can keep one single look for the site as long as possible and maintain a sense of personal brand. This same principle explains why I’ve gone more than a year not adjusting my avatar to something new despite having more options to choose from.

    When you visit my site, with time I want for you to already establish a vision of what it looks like even way before you’ve typed in the URL and to accomplish a task like that, the objective is not to deviate too much from what people are use to seeing. I can’t take credit for this thought. It was heavily inspired by Shawn Blanc.

    Not Showing Everything

    Aesthetically, weblogs can become complicated very quickly so I attempt to always keep it as clean as possible and not be obligated to include links that I want you to click on. If you’re interested in what you see, you’ll come across them on your own and not because I fed them to you.

    In the last couple of months, I like to think that my content has become more photography based and when the opportunity comes to share photographs, the objective is for them to take center stage and not be distracted by any other embellishment that I may have considered added spice to the design.

    I kept with the dark tones for the overall feel of the site because visually it draws me in more to the content. I wouldn’t go on the record to say that it’s officially complete because there’s always enhancements that I sprinkle on surreptitiously when I feel inspired by other sites I come across.

    Until then, this is it.

    1 year ago  /  Notes

  5. Nearly Dark: I walked down to the end of our block and captured what seems to be this ordinary sunset but what makes it special for me is that twinkle it performs as the evening ends. It’s also currently my iPhone Lockscreen wallpaper. (Photograph by Jorge Quinteros)

    Nearly Dark: I walked down to the end of our block and captured what seems to be this ordinary sunset but what makes it special for me is that twinkle it performs as the evening ends. It’s also currently my iPhone Lockscreen wallpaper. (Photograph by Jorge Quinteros)

    1 year ago  /  4 notes