August 29, 2010 in Personal
8 years (and 1,230 posts) ago today I was sitting in the Syracuse Airport waiting for a cross-country flight to take a voyage around the world. As I sat, I opened my journal to write what would become my first entry into an online travel log about my travels. And thus, this blog was born.
To everyone who has been there along the way, helping me to grow and encouraging me to pursue my passions for Photoshop and photography.
Thank You!
August 5, 2010 in News, Photography, Photoshop
Just a quick one for today…
I know many, if not all, of you are tied in with Facebook and/or Twitter and a number of you have connected with me on one or more of those networks. In an effort to make the conversation more focussed on digital imaging in all its forms, I have created a Jason D. Moore Photography Fan Page over on Facebook where you will be able to find all of my updates related to this blog, professional work, contests, Photoshop Q&A etc. At the same time, I am going to be sorting through my friend list for my personal profile so that it includes only friends and family. I’m not trying to kick anyone out, per se, just dividing the two worlds up so I can direct my efforts in a more focused way.
So, with no intention to offend anyone, in the next week or so I am going to be cleaning out my friends list and I’d appreciate it if you would head over to my Photography Facebook Page and became a fan so you can keep up with the conversation over there! I hope we can use that space to really engage each other in a more personal way.
I hope to see you there!
April 7, 2010 in Personal, Photography, Photoshop
First off, I’d like to wish my beautiful wife, Kim, a very Happy Engagement Anniversary! In the wee hours of April 7, 2007 after returning home from Photoshop World in Boston, Kim surprised me at my apartment to welcome me home. We spent the next several hours talking and when I presented her with my grandmother’s wedding ring, she and I decided to spend the rest of our lives together. Now, 3 years later, we have a very happy marriage, a house, an awesome puppy, and our first little one on his way at anytime.
Thank you Kim, for loving me the way you do and for sharing this adventure with me! I am truly blessed! I Love You!
—–
And now, on with the post…
(NOTE: This post was intended to be posted last week, but there was an error between the seat and the keyboard, later found to be an Id10-T problem, when scheduling. My apologies.)
Ever since I refocused my online presence towards Photoshop and digital photography back in 2006 with the Photoshop & Photography Blogroll, one of my main goals was to develop a community of creative people who would participate in projects and contests, offer tips and tutorials, and simply engage one another as we each develop our craft.
October 7, 2009 in Inspiration
With my day job I have one foot in the more technical web side of things while the other foot sits firmly in the graphic design side. It can be a challenging balance sometimes as I struggle to make sure that what I produce is both functional and visually pleasing, if not compelling.
On the one hand, a particular creative element has to be usable and fit within the technical parameters of a website or email (proper HTML, SEO-friendly, etc.) so it can perform well and contribute to the sales generated from its use. On the other, the creative element needs to be appealing and “cool” to enhance the experience of the user so that it will perform well and contribute to the sales generated from its use. It has to do both to be successful.
Taking a step back from the real world case of my job and looking more conceptually, knowing that the perfect mix of the tech and the aesthetic is ideal, which is more important? There is certainly value to each and each contributes in their own way towards the overall success of the site/email/advertisement/what-have-you.
I don’t have a definitive solution to this, but I think your average person is looking more for something that is aesthetically pleasing and works and, further, if it works but isn’t visually stimulating it will be dismissed – unless, of course, it works so well that the visual can be excused.
Maybe it’s just because I’m more graphic by nature but it seems to me that people are more likely to respond to a creative that draws them in rather than something that is more utilitarian. Areas of plain text on a plain background are often necessary and can be a critical part of communicating the message and there are situations where “less is more” and a simplistic design lends itself better than a flashy one. But just as often, I would argue, it is beneficial to integrate the information into the graphic elements to give the viewer/consumer a more complete experience.
Obviously, the most important thing is to communicate information in a meaningful way to your audience. How that information is shared is critical to how the recipient responds. But what is the best way to do that? IS there a “best” way to do that? I’m sure there isn’t. It has to be case-by-case and it has to be done with the audience in mind. And the balance between the tech and the aesthetic has to shift accordingly.
What are your thoughts? How have you dealt with finding that balance?
September 25, 2009 in Inspiration, Photography, Photoshop, Review, Tutorials, Workflow
I will be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of plug-ins. Maybe I’ve just never used the right ones, maybe I’ve never played around with them enough, maybe I just haven’t been too impressed with the results. So, I’m going into this one a little skeptical from the start.
With all of that said, I must say that when I sat down to try out Topaz Adjust, from Topaz Labs, I found myself actually enjoying the process. Now, I’m not a purist at all; I think if you have the tools at hand and the ability to utilize them to achieve your vision, by all means. But I feel, and I’ve said this before, that sometimes people can go overboard and turn a potentially good photo into something kind of “alien”, surreal, and even cartoonish which distracts from more than enhances the viewing experience. Not that it isn’t ok to do that sometimes, but it should be done sparingly, in my opinion.
When I opened up my source image from a photowalk I did in Boston over the summer, I was presented with a dark, flat, and uninteresting photo – isn’t that how most of them start out?
Sometimes, when presented with a shot like this I may even just pass right by it without giving it another thought thinking that it was a nice idea but the light wasn’t right or I didn’t take enough time to do this or that the way I wanted to. Then I thought, what better way to really put this Photoshop plug-in to the test than with an image I’m not excited about in the first place? And so the fun began.
When I first opened the plug-in dialog I felt that the interface was very intuitive with a diverse set of presets and their respective previews running down the left, a decent-sized window for your full-sized image (complete with the option to zoom in and out of your photo), and a collection of sliders along the bottom for any fine-tuning you may want to do.
I started off by clicking through each of the presets to see how they would each affect my shot, thinking as I went that a number of them just didn’t give me what I was looking for. At the same time, though, I found myself thinking how I could see where those effects might come in handy with other types of images. I finally landed on the “Dramatic” preset which really caught my attention. I felt as though it really balanced out the tones in the image by lightening up the shadow areas without blowing out the highlights. It also brought out a great deal of details and made the sky, well, dramatic. All adding interest and depth to the photo.
In a way it created an HDR-like effect without the downsides I mentioned above. I then hit the sliders to refine the image even further and really get the results I was hoping for. I brought back a little detail in the highlights and shadows, supressed the noise a tad, and made sure that I wasn’t getting that awful halo effect that a lot of HDR photos employ. In the end, I was pretty pleased with the final image. And considering I was about to dismiss the photo altogether, I’d say that using Topaz Adjust saved it from the recycle bin. Here’s my final image (only process with Topaz Adjust):
Pros:
Cons:
In the end, I would say that I am very glad to have been introduced to this plug-in and it has helped change the way I feel about plugins as a whole. I would definitely recommend adding Topaz Adjust to your Photoshop toolkit!
September 16, 2009 in Personal, Photography, Photoshop
Before I get into today’s post, Kim and I would like to send out a word of thanks to everyone who has commented either here, on Facebook, or Twitter congratulating us on the news of our pregnancy. It is such an amazing time and your words have really enriched an already exciting time. Thank you!
Now, on with the post…
I’ve always found it fascinating how everyone seems to learn different things in different ways. What can click almost immediately for one person could never get through to another simply because the information wasn’t communicated in a meaningful way. Some people are visual learners. Others are aural. Some have to read or memorize, while others have to be more hands-on before something really sticks.
In college, I would sit in a lecture and just watching the slides and listening would give me so much more than reading the book ever could. Sometimes the physical act of taking notes – whether I reviewed them later or not – would help solidify how it all fit together.
With photography and design, it’s a similar story. Reading about it doesn’t help all that much. Listening to others is good, but it doesn’t quite get me all the way there. I find that I have to engage the subject matter in a visual way before I will truly understand the concepts. Also, it helps to get my hands dirty and do a lot of trial and error to figure it out for myself before it all comes together.
When it comes to learning Photoshop I find that it is, once again, a combination of watching a demonstration while listening to the instructor’s explanation, and then trying it for myself works best. At the same time, turning around and trying to teach it to someone else becomes another layer of hands-on learning as I work it out in my mind how to explain it so someone else can understand.
Particularly with Photoshop in mind, how do you learn best? How do you need information presented in order for it to stick? What resources out there work best for you? Videos? Books? Seminars? What is it about them that does it for you? What doesn’t work?
September 3, 2009 in Blogroll, Inspiration, Personal, Photography, Photoshop
That’s right. I am now into my 8th year of writing online. Last Saturday marked my 7th anniversary of what started out as a simple way of sharing an amazing semester abroad with my family and friends and has since become the Photoshop & Photography Blog Community that we have today!
It’s been a labor of love, especially over the past 3 years or so that I’ve been focusing almost solely on digital imagery, and I’ve been blessed to develop some great friendships along the way. One such friendship, which I mentioned a few weeks back, has been with Rob Jones of Towner Jones Photography. Rob and I share a similar philosophy for our work and I am always inspired and encouraged when I meet other like-minded Photoshop & Photography enthusiasts. In case you missed that post, the guiding principle for me is something along the lines of “pay it forward.” When I learn new things about Photoshop, I love to pass it along. If I see something and wonder how it was done, I am driven to figure it out both for the challenge of it and so I can then show others what I’ve learned.
I’ve been fortunate enough to develop relationships with some notable figures in the larger digital imaging community and have been blessed to receive some notariety myself. It is all a bit surreal for me because I see myself more as a just a guy who loves photography and needs an outlet for it. If my only readers were my mom and a couple of friends – like it was back in the day – I’d be happy, so I keep having to pinch myself that I get to do this everyday and share my thoughts and work with so many of you. (If only I were able to do it full-time!)
Because I never want to let any attention because of the blog go to my head, I do my best to share the spotlight (for lack of a better term) with my readers through projects and contests and other regular series so that others have some opportunities to reach a wider audience just as I’ve had over the last few years. Again, always trying to pay it forward and build community rather than toot my own horn.
There have been a lot of changes since I first began this endeavor, especially in the last year, and there will be more to come. Some of my series have fizzled out – due to lack of traction, time/development constraints, or they were just bad ideas – and others have risen higher than I had ever thought they would. Instead of taking a more nostalgic tack, which would be very tempting and easy to do, I thought that this milestone would serve as an excellent opportunity to look forward so we might do some brainstorming together to see where we might go from here.
First off, I want to lay out a few goals that I’d like to work towards with the blog, in no particular order:
Next comes the more tricky part: How? Here is where I would like to solicit your input and ideas for how to turn the goals into realities. Maybe there’s something you’d like to see by way of a project/series/contest or other program here on the site. Maybe you have ideas about how to improve on what’s been started already. Here’s a few things to get the ball rolling (again, in no particular order):
I really want to make this site more than just another photoblog and I want to make sure that everyone from the hobbyist to the professional feels welcome and able to be a part of it. So please, give me your input and help this community grow!
July 8, 2009 in Contest, Inspiration, Photography
We’re coming up on the home stretch for two Photo Contests ending this month. First, the July Photo Contest is well under way with a pretty awesome prize in the form of a 16″x24″ gallery wrap, generously donated by our friends over at Mpix – a $100 value! Thanks guys!
Next, and even more exciting, is the BIG Photo Contest, now in its final weeks. Celebrating my upcoming 1,000th post you are invited to submit a collection of 5 photos, each fitting into one of five categories, to be judged as a series for a chance at over $1,000 in prizes from our sponsors.
Both of these photography contests are timed quite nicely to end after you have a chance to participate in the Worldwide Photowalk on the 18th. That way you will be able to really get out there and shoot before submitting your images for either or both of the contests. Full details can be found on our photo contest page.
And, while I’m at it, speaking of the photowalk there is still room in the Cazenovia Photowalk that I will be leading. So, if you are in Upstate NY and have yet to sign up, please join us for a fun afternoon of photography.
Good Luck!
March 17, 2005 in Personal
Last minute I decided to head out to Coleraine and put off going to the other sites until tomorrow. After some help from the tourist info people – with whom, for some reason, I unconsciously used a bit of an accent – I came to the relatively large cemetary on the north side of the town. Thinking it wasn’t going to be the one – I was under the presumption that it was a smaller, church one that I was looking for – my hopes weren’t that high but I thought I’d give it a shot. I had an idea of what the monument looked like so, as I wandered, I stopped and checked each candidate. Thinking I had come to the wrong place and beginning to make my way back towards the gate, I turn a corner, passing a few more headstones on the way. As the map came out of my pocket and I began to unfold it, a gust of wind blew the map closed again causing me to look up to regain my barings and my eyes fell upon it… I stopped dead in my tracks. There it was. There HE was. My trip was fulfilled by this singular moment. [I had found the finaly resting place of my dad's uncle Tommy who had died in Portrush, NI when he was 9 years old while visting family.] I took some pictures, I made a rubbing, I put back a part of the wall that had fallen down, and for about 45 minutes I just sat there taking in the moment.
I have been all over the world and have seen and walked in amazing places, some famous, some rare, but never in all my travels have I ever had such a moving experience just by being in such a simple place as an ordinary graveyard.
Over the next few days, while I hope to visit a few cool places, it doesn’t matter all that much because the important thing, what’s really truly important, is complete. It was all worth it.
March 14, 2005 in Personal
I am about to take a step I have never taken before. I have been in foreign countries before and I have even spent some time alone in some of them. I’ve flown cross-country by myself and I’ve lived on my own quite successfully for some time now. But today, while similar, is quite different.
Once again, two and a half years later, I am in the Syracuse airport waiting for a flight that will lead me to a far away place, a place to which I have never been. Semester at Sea took me around the world to twelve different countries, and it was awesome. In many ways, that trip defined my life. While I feel the excitement and anticipation of travel abroad, there’s something else there today, something significant.
I am on my way to London and Northern Ireland for a week of vacation, history, and escape from my day-to-day life. In the 4-5 months that I’ve been planning this trip I’ve felt quite excited and anxious to go. Now, I’m glad to be here and on my way but there is a touch of anxiety that I’m traveling with. I’m alone. It’s not related, directly, with my singleness but I’m somewhat nervous to travel by myself. There’s freedom and flexibility with it but there is no one to lean on, no one to share this adventure with.
For the next week, I am totally independant and on my own in a way I’ve never been before now. It’s exciting, it really is. As uneasy as I may feel because of the newness of the experience, I am filled with this deeper sense of meaning and purpose. And I’m not sure what it is. I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday and she shared with me that she had the same feeling about this, that it is going to be a very special time for me and filled with amazing things.
Visiting the place where my family comes from as well as spending time in a world-class city are going to be a part of the wide range of experiences I’ll have and will bring a depth to my time that I cannot yet perceive. Something wonderful is about to happen…
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