MOO MiniCards review (and image preparation tips)

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MOO MiniCards

A while back, a colleague at work gave me one of his new MOO MiniCards advertising his online photography portfolio.  It was about half the size of a normal business card, which was already cute and unique, but more so was when he fanned out a few and flipped them over to show that each one had a different photo printed on the back!  I spent some time looking through them and chose one I liked to keep.  Walking away, I thought, “This is such a clever idea!”  Especially for photographers, turning business cards into a pocketable portfolio just makes a lot of sense.  The act of giving a business card becomes an interactive activity and a great way to start a conversation.

I’d seen MOO cards advertised online and in magazines and always thought they’d be cool to try, but until I was actually given one I didn’t put much serious thought into ordering a set.  Recently I did look into putting together a set of cards for myself and wanted to share the steps I went through to prepare my images as well as my impressions of the final product.

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Atelier Crenn gallery added

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Atelier Crenn

I posted photos from Jon’s and my fifth anniversary dinner today in the Atelier Crenn gallery!  The restaurant, located in the Marina district of San Francisco, is owned and run by Chef Dominique Crenn.  Her tasting menu is a poem, where each line of the poem represents a different course.  The food was delicious and uniquely presented, sometimes disguised as things one might find in the forest.  Atelier Crenn earned two Michelin stars in the 2013 Bay Area Michelin Guide.

This was my second time shooting in a restaurant with my new, full-frame D600.  The ability to shoot in low light on the D600 was really tested this time.  It was dark!  Exposures were nowhere near ideal at f/1.8, around 1/30th, and ISO 6400.  I think this might be the darkest restaurant I’d ever tried to shoot in!  That said, I felt the D600′s focus was accurate and the ISO 6400 images cleaned up nicely in Lightroom.  So far, this full-frame camera upgrade is working out well!

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The Restaurant at Meadowood gallery added

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The Restaurant at Meadowood

Photos from Jon’s birthday dinner last September were added in The Restaurant at Meadowood gallery today!  Meadowood, located in the Napa Valley in St. Helena, is only the second Bay Area restaurant to earn three Michelin stars, along with The French Laundry.  The meal, prepared by Chef Christopher Kostow, was worth every one of those stars.  From hand-written birthday cards to delicious, unique dishes and presentations, the evening was perfect.  Check out the photos of our new favorite restaurant and let me know what you think in the comments!

Flying to Asia gallery added

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Hong Kong International Airport

One more set of images from our 2012 trip to Asia was added today in the Flying to Asia gallery!  On this trip, the destinations were only part of the story, so much so, that I though the flights themselves deserved their own gallery.  We flew Singapore Airlines First Class from San Francisco to Singapore via Hong Kong; ANA Business Class on the shorter 4-hour flights from Hong Kong to Tokyo; and Cathay Pacific First Class on the 14-hour flight home.  These photos represent a glimpse of what our experience was like both in the airports we visited and in the planes we flew.  Unlike the artistic destination galleries, this set of images in a bit more documentary in nature.  I hope you enjoy them!  Let me know what you think in the comments!

Getting started with 500px

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My 500px Profile Page

500px is an online photo sharing community.  It’s similar to the popular website flickr, but designed by photographers, for photographers to share only their best work.  500px has about 500 times fewer registered users than flickr—but in my opinion, that’s a good thing.  The site has a unique rating system that’s time sensitive.  This means that no matter how well known you are your photos’ “pulse” will go down over time; everyday new photos have a chance to make it to the top and be seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers.  After browsing 500px for a while I decided to register a few months ago.  I saw it as a great way to get exposure, to receive feedback on my work, and to be able to learn from others.  It’s been fun to see which photos of mine are liked by the community (and to see if my idea of a good photo is matched by my peers!).  It’s also been great to see the other amazing work out there.  I see images that I like and try to decide what makes them successful so I can apply those characteristics to my own work.  You will only get out of 500px what you put in though.  You can’t just upload photos and sit back and wait.  I’ve learned a few tips and tricks to how 500px works since joining and want to share those here.

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Full Frame

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Nikon D600 with 85mm f/1.8

After a waiting a few years for Nikon to release an update to the D300s I’d been using, I finally made the jump to full frame when the D600 was announced.  Here’s why I made the decision and why I think I’m better off with this camera than the one I thought I wanted.

First, why upgrade cameras at all?  I bought the D300s when it was first announced in mid-2009.  Its predecessor, the D300, was highly regarded as an excellent DX format (crop sensor) body and many pros used one or at least had one as a backup camera.  I had no doubt the D300s would be just as good, if not better.  I was replacing an aging D70.  I certainly had a reason to upgrade.  I wanted more resolution, lower noise in low light, and a pro-level autofocus system.  I’d advanced as a photographer enough that I would take advantage of many of the pro features of the D300s.  Without spending the big bucks for a full frame camera, the D300s was the best camera I could buy and it worked extremely well for me.

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Hong Kong Layovers gallery added

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Ferry departing for Kowloon

The fourth and final set of destination images from our 2012 Asia was added to the Hong Kong Layovers gallery today!  Jon and I spent just over 48 hours in Hong Kong, but on three separate layovers while hopping over Asia.  We did a surprising amount in that time! We visited Victoria Peak, had dim sum at Lung King Heen, enjoyed xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung (twice!), took a ferry ride to Central, and tried one Michelin-star noodle soup at Ho Hung Kee.  Hope you enjoy the photos.

Tokyo gallery added

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Tokyo street lights

I added the third set of photos from our 2012 Asia trip today in the Tokyo gallery!  This gallery features photos from our walks around Shinjuku, Ginza, and Asakusa, as well as meals at Sushi Kanesaka and Tempura Kondo.  I hope you like them.  Next gallery will be photos from our stopovers in Hong Kong.

New year, new website, and new blog!

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Happy new year, 2013!

If you haven’t noticed, I have an updated website!  I’ve given my photography home a new, modern layout, integrated the site with Fotomoto, and added this blog.   The home page is interactive allowing users to pause on an image or flip through at their own pace.  The new gallery layout uses square thumbnails everywhere which I think gives a clean, consistent look.  Gallery pages also have mobile versions that provide an easy-to-use, swipe-able interface to view photos from your smart phone.  The Fotomoto integration gives me a simple way to sell and ship prints to anyone who wants them and adds free eCards as a bonus!  Of course, this blog is new too.  Over the past few years I’ve found myself saying: “If I only had a blog, this <whatever issue/excitement/observation-of-the-day> would make a good post!”  I didn’t want to do it unless I had a good way to interface with my current website though.  When I did the re-design I looked into it and found it wasn’t going to be that difficult, so here we are!

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