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We humans are frightened by a lot of things but for most of us the scariest thing of all is contemplating the future. Not a future in which all is happiness and bliss but one in which something horrible pops up out of nowhere to grab us by the throat. Some unforeseen event so overwhelming that our lives are forever damaged. Ready and waiting to respond to this fear is, of course, the insurance industry.
Who amongst us has not been tempted to make use of an image found via Google Image Search? In the past, you would have been wise to avoid that temptation, since in most cases this would have run counter to the intent of the image creator. But Google has recently added the ability to determine the usage rights connected with such images, which is good news for those either seeking or creating imagery.
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.
Chris Jordan is a Seattle-based photographer who is receiving growing acclaim for his series of dramatic images devoted to what one usually thinks of as the driest of all topics: statistics. But not just any statistics. Jordan has chosen to visually demonstrate the wildly out of control nature of our consumer culture through photographic constructs that bring home the numbing statistics that express the scope of our ravaging consumerism.
We humans are a strange breed. Throughout our history we've managed to bring forth engineering projects on a staggering scale, such as The Great Wall of China. Graceful structures spanning continents and millenia testify to the ancient beliefs and aesthetic refinement of cultures that could have much to teach us. The backdrop for these marvels of human ingenuity is the natural wonder of the Earth itself, at one time a source of spiritual and material sustenance. But rather than cherishing all this, we have systematically destroyed the best of what we have inherited from those who came before, either through neglect, greed or intolerance. And what little remains, is going fast.
What a difference a few short years can make in the stock photo business. Back in 2002, when Jupiterimages' Photos.com royalty-free stock photo subscription service launched, I lent a hand in getting the site some initial traffic. This included listing it in then-popular categorized site directories such as Yahoo, LookSmart and the Open Directory Project. The inexorable rise of Google has since caused Yahoo to downplay its once-mighty directory, LookSmart has become marginalized and the ODP seems to be stuck in a time warp. But in those days, being listed in these three directories was considered essential for the successful launch of a new site.
I find it surprising that most training material for graphics applications is still in the form of books. After all, digital cameras, rich-media authoring tools and the video capabilities of Flash make it easy to put together slick video-based training products, whether they're delivered on CD or streamed on the net. There are a few firms that dominate the market, such as Total Training and Lynda.com, but after that it's primarily up to the graphics gurus themselves to wear yet another hat by creating and selling their own training content.
If you shoot digital photos, odds are you either use, or are familiar with, the RAW file format. A RAW file is simply one that contains the actual, unprocessed raw data created by a digital camera. That being the case, such files provide a better starting point for manipulation and ensure that none of the original image data has been lost, ensuring the utmost fidelity. Sounds great. In theory.
