One of the things that I share with my students about the practice of photography is the role of “the editor”. And by that I don’t mean the software that one uses to massage a digital photograph or even the person sitting at the computer working the mouse or the stylus. Rather, I am referring to the voice in the head that makes the decision of what’s good or bad, what works or doesn’t work. It’s the voice that’s meant to guide me as to whether I’m walking the right creative path or that I’ve lost my direction and have become tangled in the burrs and weeds.

Read the full article.

At the black & white evening on Wednesday we looked at Joe McNally as our featured photographer. I mentioned that he is well known for photographing at great height. Here is a video of him shooting at the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure on earth.

Visit Shutters Inc – episode 213 to download the podcast in MP3 format, or listen to it using the web-based player on that page. On this page you will also find the show notes including links to the articles on his site that Les mentions during his talk.

Congratulations to Florian for this achievement and we hope that his image will go on to achieve further honours in this international competition.

UPDATE: Mashable has posted 43 Breathtaking Photos You’ll Never Forget from the shortlisted images and Florian’s image is one of them.

Often times when looking at an image, people will ask “Was that Photoshopped?” or “Did that scene REALLY look that way?”  They say this as if the camera, left to its own devices, is going to display an unedited, “truthful” image.  The truth is, that any image coming out of one of today’s digital cameras has been manipulated.  The only question is how.

Read the article

First a caveat. Updating firmware carries a slight risk of malfunctioning that could render your camera inoperable. It is therefore widely accepted that you should only install a firmware update if it specifically corrects a problem you have or provides a new feature or performance increase you can benefit from. If your camera is working fine now then you may just want to skip updating the firmware.

There is no generic way to describe how to install firmware updates as this will differ from manufacturer to manufacturer and can even differ from device to device from the same manufacturer.

It is my experience (from using many electronic devices, which is what DSLRs are) that wherever a manufacturer provides firmware updates they will also provide explicit instructions on how to install them. It is very important to follow these instructions to the letter or risk "bricking" the device. If this happens you will at least need to have a service centre return the device to its factory default state, and there might be cases where a device needs to be returned to the factory to have this done. In isolated cases there might even be no way provided for the manufacturer to do this, meaning the device will permanently be nothing more than an expensive paper weight. However this is unlikely to be the case for digital cameras and usually affects cheap devices where manufacturers ignored this need to cut design and manufacturing costs.

If you think there may be a firmware update available for your camera here is what you should do.

Visit the support section of the manufacturer’s web site and look for a section that provides downloads. Once there you may find a list of available downloads to look through, or you may have to enter or select some choices to narrow down the camera you have.

As most of our members have either Canon or Nikon cameras, I have provided some specific info on this for these cameras. Bear in mind that these refer to web sites that may change in future, which could mean these no longer match what they are at the time of writing.

• Canon – select your country, product and model in the For you section and click the Go button. On the next page select the Firmware download type (click the circle so it gets a black dot in it) and a list of available firmware for your camera will be displayed. Find the latest update available for your camera, paying attention to whether there are different versions for Mac and Windows computers and click on it. You will now see a page with details of what has changed, a legal disclaimer and a button to accept and download the update. The download file is a ZIP archive that includes both the firmware update and instructions on how to install it.
• Nikon – page through the list to find the latest update available for your camera. Click on it and you are presented with a page explaining what features have been changed, how to verify which version you currently have, instructions for upgrading, a legal disclaimer and buttons to download the updates for either Mac or Windows computers.

If you feel uncomfortable with performing such an upgrade yourself you should approach a specialist camera store such as Orms who will be able to advise and possibly assist you. If they are unable to perform the upgrade for you they should be able to refer you to a service centre that can.