This is the last post i need to put on this blog, it’s been a year like i promised Kyle i would do, and it’s funny as i sit here in my house, which now feels like my prison, i’m not going to miss it at all !

This has easily been the worst year of my life, hands down and it’s still going, no looking on the bright side, no light at the end of the tunnel none of that i’m afraid.

I’ve learnt so much, i’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter how good you are it DOES NOT mean you will get the work, you need to know the handshake, or need to know someone, you don’t need to have an ounce of fuckin talent at all, if you sold cars ( or bricks) you can pick up a DSLR turn up create below average pictures and get away with it, and be so fuckin deluded with your Talent that you believe you are the man !

Being a photographer is not what it used to be, and i’m having real trouble dealing with this, sitting at home gives me a long time to think, probably too much time and as i am selling some of my lenses to pay my bills i ask my self is it worth it ?

and i’m afraid i can’t answer that any more, but just as i doubt myself, my life, my ability and my belief in God, and yes i’m a big believer in God, just because i don’t shout about it or go to church on a sunday doesn’t mean i don’t pray or believe, but just as i’m at the lowest i’ve ever been my mother gives me a bookmark, yes that’s right a bookmark and below is what it says on it.

DON’T QUIT

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low, and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Success is failure turned inside out,

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you can never tell how close you are,

it may be near when it seems afar,

So, stick to the fight when your hardest hit,

It’s when things go wrong that you mustn’t quit

The best camera is the one you have with you. And – possibly – the best camera software designer is a photographer. At least, that’s what Chase Jarvis hopes. Chase is the man who proves that, in the right hands, the iPhone can make an awesome camera.

Chase has collaborated on a new iPhone app called “Best Camera” which, as Strobist David Hobby told me this morning, is “like Photoshop lite for the iPhone”. Best Camera grabs pictures from you camera roll and lets you process and then share them. Many other applications do this but, to disagree slightly with David, Best Camera comes across more like a mini-Lightroom.

This is because of its approach to effects, all of which are accessed by a rolling strip of icons at the bottom of the screen. Like Lightroom, there are built-in presets — four of them, which mimic the look of Chase’s own photos. The there are several more “building block” like filters which can be stacked together and, again like Lightroom, saved as presets that can then be shared. Best of all, these filters can be removed and the order rearranged.

I have had the app on my iphone for a while and started uploading pics to the best camera site.

This is awesome as you can see live feeds of the photos being taken all over the world at that time, here is one of mine that is uploaded HERE

I’ve been using Aperture 3 for a few days now, its Apples pro photo editing and management software for the Mac, with over 200 new features, including Faces, Places and Brushes. More importantly, Apple re-wrote Aperture 3 as a 64-bit application that takes advantage of multi-core CPUs and GPU-accelerated graphics, courtesy of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Apple’s marketing chief Philip Schiller pitched the software to both pros and consumers:

Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos. Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets.

Aperture 3 borrowed a few popular features from iPhoto, Apple’s consumer photo management software that’s preloaded on every new Mac as part of the iLife digital lifestyle suite. More precisely, Aperture now has the iPhoto’s Faces and Places feature that tap facial recognition and geotagging to organize your images according to people faces and where they’d been taken, respectively.

A new view displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named, Apple said. Just like in iPhoto, you can now assign locations to photos in Aperture 3 by dropping photos onto a world map or by using the embedded geolocation saved when you take photos using GPS-enabled cameras and devices like the iPhone.

APERTURE MEETS IPHOTO Aperture 3 took clues from iPhoto with Places (left) and Faces (right) features that organize photos according to people’s faces and geolocation, respectively. Brushes (middle) with automatic edge detection provides popular image adjustments.

The new Brushes feature with automatic edge detection lets you paint image adjustments on to parts of your photo using handy presets for popular tasks such as Dodge, Burn, Polarize, and Blur. Those effects are painted on to images without the complexity of layers or masks, Apple stressed. Also new are Adjustment Presets that facilitate pro-grade one-click image effects. The software ships with dozens of effect presets and you can create your own or import presets shared via the web.

Apple also added new slideshows that combine photos, audio, text, and HD video, and you can export slideshows to iTunes. The new full-screen browser will also come in handy when you need to browse your entire image library. Just like iPhoto, Aperture 3 sports export options for posting your photos directly to Facebook and Flickr, in addition to the in-app ordering of prints and custom hardcover books.

The regimen begins long before he arrives at a Winter Olympics site. Mr. Mills, just shy of 50, calls himself a “survivor skier,” who must train for a few weeks to ensure he can ski safely to photographic vantages along the slopes. (You thought photographers got there by bus?)

Once at the site — this year Vancouver — Mr. Mills spends days studying the likely medal contenders as they practice, watching for any nuances that might inform how they’ll move during their competition runs, when they attain speeds of 80 miles an hour or more. He also scouts out vantage points that might provide strong images, with complementary backgrounds. Mr. Mills is constantly asking himself, “What’s it going to look like; not just when they hit the gate, but when they come over?”

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO HERE…….

Apple executives could be “nimble” on pricing for the iPad tablet PC, according to a Credit Suisse analyst, should the device fail to achieve sufficient marketplace traction following its release in two months. Prices for the iPad currently range from $499 to $829, depending on options such as Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. In addition, a job posting on the Apple corporate site adds fuel to rumors that Apple could be planning to integrate a camera module of some sort into the iPad.

Apple may be “nimble” on its price point for the upcoming iPad tablet PC, according to Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope, if customers refuse to flock to the device during its initial rollout within the next two months.

Shope met with Apple executives about the device sometime last week, and came away reporting—perhaps unsurprisingly—that the company believes there will be a relatively low rate of cannibalization between the iPad and similar touch-screendevices, including the iPod Touch and the iPhone.

“Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key use cases,” Shope wrote in a note, excerpts of which have appeared on The Wall Street Journal’s blog. “This clear segmentation of capabilities suggests that cannibalization may be less of a concern than most currently believe.”

But Apple executives are apparently willing to lower the price point for the iPad if the device fails to gain traction in the market. That would be similar to Apple’s decision to slice the price of the iPhone by $200 some two months after the device’s release. Apple later extended store credit to early adopters who had paid the iPhone’s initial $599 price.

Immediately following its Jan. 27 unveiling of the device, Apple listed a variety of price-points for the iPad based on options. The 16GB version will cost $499 with Wi-Fi, and $629 with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 32GB version will cost $599 with Wi-Fi, and $729 with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 64GB version will cost $699 with Wi-Fi, and $829 with Wi-Fi and 3G.

Rumors of a price drop may drive customers to wait for an actual price drop rather than purchase an iPad immediately upon release, making the Apple executives’ reported comments into a self-fulfilling—and ironic—prophecy. Even without reductions, those price-points are lower than for a number of Apple products, specifically the company’s traditional PCs. Nonetheless, they represent a substantial markup from competing devices such as Amazon.com’s Kindle, which currently markets for $259 with another price cut rumored in the works.

The iPad’s higher price point has been seen as a potential competitive disadvantage by some analysts, at least within the e-reader segment. “IPS offers a better viewing angle than traditional LCD technologies,” IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian wrote in a Jan. 27 research note, referring to the iPad’s screen, “but is not any better than other LCDs outdoors, and its backlighting can induce discomfort from eyestrain, something that Kindle has hedged against with its E Ink display technology.”

Apple seems to intend the device as an all-around multimedia center, though, and a filler of the gap between smartphones and traditional PCs. Its ability to display book and periodical layouts with complicated layouts and colors intact, as opposed to e-reader’s monochromatic display, has been seen by some segments as a major factor in both its competitive strength against other companies and its ability to appeal to publishers.

Eh ? what you think of that picture ? is the sort of thing they say, waiting for me or anyone else to massage their ego.

It is quite easy to get approval if we ask enough people, or if we ask those who are likely to tell us what we want to hear.

They will probably say nice things rather than be too critical. Also, we tend to edit out the bad so we hear only what we want to hear.

So, if you produced a pleasantly acceptable piece of work, you will have proved to yourself that it’s good simply because others have told you so.

It probably is OK. But then it’s probably not great either.

If instead of seeking approval, you ask,

” What’s wrong with this ? “

” How can i make it better ? “

then you will get a truthful, Critical answer.  You may even get an idea to help improve your original idea, but are still in a position to reject the criticism if you think they are wrong.

It’s the same in work people don’t want anyone else to know their ideas, Problem is with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves and eventually you will become stale.

If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, be aware and replenish.

Somehow, the more you give away the more comes back to you.

IDEAS ARE OPEN KNOWLEDGE, DON’T CLAIM OWNERSHIP !

They are not your ideas anyway, they’re someone elses

What’s the difference between an Amatuer and a professional photographer ?

That’s the question my tutor in college asked me years ago. He answered it,

an amatuer gets up in the morning and decides if the weather is what they want for the picture, a professional has to go out in all weathers and make the picture.

I learnt this today, i was sent to Down Royal Racecourse, i arrived to thick rain, snow, mud everywhere and couldn’t believe i had to do a whole feature on behind the scenes at a days horse racing.

It turned out to be a great day, i got soaked, my face hurt with the wind and the rain but the jockeys, trainers and owners were so glad that someone had made the effort to cover this for the Papers.

“WITHOUT HAVING A GOAL, IT’S HARD TO SCORE “

That’s what my mum used to say to me, and she’s right, i wanted to be a photographer, i’m blessed to make my living doing something i love, so best to just get on with it and Enjoy it !

I have over a thousand followers, i got phoned by an american company today who want to book me for work in different parts of Ireland,

I’ve had a few mentions from other photographers, which is nice and so far it’s all been good.

So after a lot of people taking an interest in how to make twitter work to help your blog i thought i would help by giving you some of the programs out there.

1. TwitterFeed: After creating a Twitter account, you provide Twitterfeed with the URL for blog’s RSS feed, and then configure how often you want to post to Twitter. After that, every time you publish a post on your blog, it creates a post on Twitter announcing its availability. If you have multiple blogs, you can a single Twitterfeed account to promote all of them.

The only downside to Twitterfeed is its insistence you use OpenID to create an account and login. It’s not a big deal but if you don’t have an OpenID account, you have to get one before you can use Twitterfeed. That said, Twitterfeed is a service I would pay to use if it wasn’t free.

2. Twitter Updater is a WordPress plug-in that automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit a WordPress post. I’ve never used Twitter Updater but know people who do. It may be a useful service but the notice that appears in your Twitter feed is annoying: Fiddling with my blog post: Twitter Updater

3. Twitter Tools: The creation of WordPress plug-in domo Alex King, Twitter Tools lets you post Tweets on your blog as posts, and have blog posts sent to Twitter. It sounds confusing but King ensures that it will not “cause the world to end in a spinning fireball of death”.

4. JigTweets: Rather than just letting you publishing a blog’s RSS feed into Twitter, JigTweets also lets you Web sites, video, photos and your location. To use JigTweet, you visit the Web site, enter your Twitter username and password, and then select the type of content you want to post into Twitter. You can also use JigTweets to publish things on Ping and Friendfeed.

I set out to get as many followers as i could in One day, i filled out my bio with truthful words, uploaded a picture of myself, as recomended by twitter.

Brian Thompson was the first to join ( we love you brian ) i put up a few tweets late into the night when America was online went to bed and woke up to find 1000 E-Mails from twitter !

I couldn’t believe it, i want to thank the people who read the blog, about 350 joined up which i’m grateful for, but what turned out as an excercise for me and Kyle ( my son ) turned into the most addictive thing i’ve engaged in in a long time, i got some amazing e-mails from people all over the world, and met some fantastic people, so thanks to everyone who helped, and to the 3,568 people who visited my blog within 8 hours yesterday, just goes to show you the traffic you can get from Social Media if it’s done right !

P.S Even as i’m writing this my e-mail is still going.