Photo-Nat News

Photo-Nat Member's Gallery Gets Facelift

When we hear the word construction, many of us cringe at the thought of long delays, traffic detours, shut downs and huge messes. This seems to be the season for massive construction in and around our towns and cities. Not only are our local streets and highways undergoing badly construction improvements, so is our Photo-Nat Website Member’s Gallery. The main difference, however, we won’t be holding you up in traffic or sending you on a detour. Our construction is fully transparent.

In the past our gallery was designed using a template from web design program called FrontPage. This is an older program that would automatically create our galleries in an HTML format. Our new galleries will also be designed using a template, but they will now be Flash galleries.

The Flash gallery has some limitations, but it also has some great advantages. Here are some of the highlights:

- Size of the image displayed is determined by the viewer’s monitor. Smaller monitors won’t be hindered by larger images being partially displayed. The only limitation is the size of the image you submit.

- The images are built into the program. This makes it considerably more secure. Viewers can’t just right click on the image and download it.

- The gallery is very user friendly and provides some display options. Viewers can selectively choose a single image from the bottom filmstrip for instant viewing. They can also page through the images with the arrow keys on the keyboard or use their mouse by clicking on arrow cursors. Slideshow is another available option for an automated display of all the images in the gallery. The bottom film strip can be used to navigate, but it can also be hidden to maximize the image viewing space.

- Because of the programmed being “canned”, we are limited to how we can set up the gallery. Text sizes and locations are predetermined and cannot be customized other than the colours. Personal websites and/or emails can be included, but they will no longer be hyperlinked, sorry. We still, however, have the link page for anyone who would like to include links to their site or alternate gallery.

Because of this completely overhauled design, the guidelines for submitting images has been updated to reflected the change in the galleries. For details, please refer to the information in the Members Only Info Sections under: Information Regarding Submitting Photos for the Web Gallery

Photo-Nat Member Bill Bickle Wins Award

Bill has receive an Award on an Image submitted to David Suzuki , Nature in Focus Competition, from the Spirit Bear Trip.

The Nature of Things and Planet in Focus present the winners of the 7th annual Nature in Focus photography competition. This year there was over 3,300 entries overall. The judges said the process was challenging but rewarding. "We had another great selection of photos to go through this year,” says competition judge and wildlife photographer Ron Erwin. “It was a long but enjoyable day. The task of eliminating images is always a very difficult one. I wish there was room to include more!”

Klemtu Gull by Bill Bickle Roslin, ON This image was taken in Great Bear Rainforest in October 2010. I was with several individuals on a photo trip for the Spirit Bear in the vicinity. Klemtu is a remote Native village within the Great Bear Rainforest. Our trip was an adventure, having to endure two storms on-board a sailing vessel over a 10-day period. The Klemtu dock was a secure tie-up to ride out the storms. During that time, only several hours were spent photographing, while the rest was spent finding safe and secure anchorage. A beautiful flying bird, this immature Herring Gull was searching the river for returning salmon who were swimming upstream. Many salmon had already expired and were laying on the river bottom. Some were lodged between rocks where gulls, ravens and eagles were gorging themselves with pink salmon. http://www.cbc.ca/photos/galleries/360/360_4258_web_8column.jpg

by Tony DeGroot

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINES ONLINE

While the CRTC and Bell are doing their best to cripple Canada’s internet, other business and establishments are embracing this amazing innovative technology. The internet has changed the way we live in so many ways and can be a vast and colossal source of valuable information. Photography information is no exception.

Although not new to the web, we are seeing more and more free online magazines. Many hard copy magazines derive a huge part of their income from advertising. What we pay for at the magazine stands is mostly the cost of printing, distribution and retailing. By viewing eMagazines in a PDF format, those costs are eliminated, not to mention the environmental savings (trees, pollution from transportation). Free online magazines are emerging all over the world and there are some great online eMagazines published right here in Canadian.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine

PhotographyBB is a completely free publication with the goal of educating beginner to intermediate level photographers, and has become a leading resource in the future of free information distribution. The Vancouver based publication, PhotographyBB Online Magazine offers readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, discussions on issues surrounding the photo community, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom. Their web site is http://www.photographybb.com.

PhotographyBB has just released their of the 36th edition last month and can be downloaded at: Http://www.photographybb.com/PBB_Magazine/issue_34/PhotographyBB_34.pdf

PhotoNews Magazine

In this beautifully created magazine, you will find many photographic concepts, illustrating the various styles and techniques appropriate to each season. Their team of expert professional and amateur photographers will show you some of their best work, and explain how you can achieve similar results – whether you are a novice photographer with basic equipment at your disposal, or a seasoned hobbyist with a full complement of gear.

Visit their site at http://www.photonews.ca to view the current and archived issues and get your free subscription.

PhotoZoom Magazine

PhotoZoom is a brand new Canadian magazine who launched their debut issue December 2010. This magazine is designed to entertain and inform both amateur and professional photographers. It will be providing you with industry news, reviews, trends, articles, interviews, tutorials, galleries, competitions, advice and much, much more!

Photo Zoom is a magazine dedicated to the art of photography. In every issue we will go over the ins & outs, the tricks & tips and everything else that has to do with photography", says Scott Howard, Editor.

PhotoZoom Magazine will also claim to be attentive to the reader's thoughts, viewpoints, reviews, suggestions, and, most importantly, featuring their photos.

PhotoZoom will be viewed and reviewed by local photo clubs, Universities and Colleges offering photography courses, various online social media sites, and online directories pertaining to photography related companies.

Whether you are an amateur using a simple point and shoot camera or a professional who relies on photography as his main source of income, as long as you love this inspirational art form, you will enjoy PhotoZoom magazine.

Other Online Magazine

Since the internet is “World Wide”, there is a plethora of other online photo magazines from every corner of the earth available to photographers. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I invite you to check out some of these well written articles on the subject:

For an extensive list of 40 online photo magazines, check out an article from Andrew Gibson:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/17/40-amazing-online-photography-magazines/

Photojojo sites has produced an excellent article named: 10 Online Photography Magazines We Love

Enjoy these free magazines from the comfort of your own home without spending an extra dime. Learn and share and, remember, the spirit of the internet is freedom.