Technology Explained, Practice
Daniela Bowker
Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! ...

When you hear the term 'high-res' thrown about with such abandon when it comes to images for web use, have you ever stopped to think just how big or how high quality and image meant for the web needs to be?

Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! Saving images for the web
Feature Articles, Photography Theory
Haje Jan Kamps
Low-contrast photographs don't have to be boring

There's an assumption that high-contrast images are more dynamic, more compelling, more inviting. Have a go at some low-contrast photography. You might surprise yourself with the results.

Low-contrast photographs don't have to be boring
Feature Articles, Theory
Daniela Bowker
Seeking balance in your photos

Balance doesn't mean symmetry; it means an internal consistency and tension within your photos. And it's a vital element of composition. 

Seeking balance in your photos
Feature Articles, Photography Theory
Haje Jan Kamps
Training your photographic luck

Great photos might be down to a little bit of luck, but most of that 'luck' you make yourself. Don't believe us? Read on...

Training your photographic luck
Feature Articles, Practice
Daniela Bowker
The ups and downs and ins and outs of ...

Photographing buildings doesn't have to mean wide-angle lenses and fretting about correcting for the keystone effect. Any lens, and angle. Don't believe us? Let us show you!

The ups and downs and ins and outs of photographing buildings

new image

We've some pretty postcards to give away!

postcard-standard

The guys over at UPrinting have generously given us three sets of 100 postcards to give away to some of our USian readers. They make lots of pretty printed things, but both Haje and I are postcard fanatics, so we’re mighty excited by this. (Take a look here for what they offer.)

Of course, we had to come up with a means to give away these lovely missive, so we’ve devised a little quiz. It’s not terribly hard, we promise. And all the answers are on Small Aperture, of course.

Complete the form, submit it by 23:59 Wednesday 1 June (that’s PST, which is pretty much when I’m waking up here in the UK), and we’ll announce a winner later this week. All groovy? Cool! Good luck!

And now for the boring bit:

  • Participants must be resident in the USA and over 18 years of age
  • Three winners will be selected at random from correct entries
  • 100 postcards for each winner, no alternatives are available
  • Postcards measure 5” x 7”; 14pt cardstock gloss; front-only printing
  • Two business days print turnaround time, free shipping
  • This postcards giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting online printing services no monetary compensation was given.

News in brief: Google challenges JPG

The web isn’t quite fast enough, says Google, and they’ve decided that they can do better than JPG, PNG and GIF, with the introduction of a new image format, WebP.

It seems as if Google have found a new way of compressing images, whilst keeping them sharper and less prone to compression artifacts than the current file systems in use.

For now, WebP is only supported in Chrome and Opera, but we’ll see whether Firefox and (god forbid) Microsoft throw themselves into the mix as well.

Exciting times to be a photographer!

More about the format on the Google Code site – and the announcement was made in the Chromium blog
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What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.