If you live in or near Salt Lake City, or if you’ll be nearby on November 21st and 22nd, you will want to check out the SparkArts Digital Arts Festival.  Its focus is fairly broad, but there’s a little bit of something for everyone, especially photographers.  There will be photography competitions and a few seminars presented by Professional Photographer Eric Hamilton.  Best of all, the entire event is free! Here’s the official press release:

The SparkArts digital arts festival is coming to Salt Lake City this November 21-22. SparkArts is a free event which teaches participants how to create art with a computer, and is particularly geared toward people who want to make digital art and video games but don’t know how.

The festival gives younger participants a chance to meet professional game developers, musicians, and artists in an informal, casual setting. Teenagers and college students who dream of making video games but don’t know where to begin are invited to come and bring their computers.
SparkArts will provide free, legal software for creating games on-site. It will also hold question-and-answer sessions, tutorials, and bring together hobbyists and professionals from the game, music, and digital imaging industries. There will be many “just-for-fun” activities, including games, scavenger hunts, and competitions inspired by the quirky digital-arts culture.

The organizers of SparkArts have been setting up similar events for over five years, and have had hundreds of participants come and enjoy the experience. “Utah had a thriving digital arts scene among teenagers and college student in the mid-90s,” says Adam Helps, one of the festival’s founders. “Unfortunately, much of this has faded away in recent years. SparkArts is our attempt to revive and even expand on this culture, which helped capture the imagination and inspire the previous generation’s computing professionals.” Most of SparkArts’ organizers are software developers and IT professionals working in Utah.

Major focuses of the festival include video game programming, computer-aided music composition, digital painting and 3-d modeling. Festival organizers will provide necessary software and instructions. Attendees will create projects during the course of the festival, and the results will be displayed in a fun and colorful closing ceremony.

SparkArts is run by a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, and is sponsored by the Salt Lake Library. The event will be held in the Salt Lake Library all day Friday and Saturday, November 21-22. There is no charge for attending or participating. The general public is invited to come, optionally bring a computer, and enjoy the festival!

For more information, check out the official website:  SparkArts.org

Winter Photography - I’ll be honest, I never really made an effort to do much in the way of winter photography, except to capture obvious winter aspects such as ice, snow or the like.  After reading an article written by Andre Gunther for the Digital Photography School, I am now convinced that I should take winter photography more seriously.  The article is written mostly as a persuasive article, but it also outlines a few good tips.  Definately a worthwhile read.

Read the article:  Photography in the Winter Season

This photo has been sitting in my workflow for a little while now.  I think the photo has a lot of merits and I was on the fence about whether or not to add it to my portfolio.  Since it is now the subject of my Educational Failure column, it goes without saying that the image ended up in the rejection pile.  The following is a brief disclosure of what ultimately led to its dismissal.

First and foremost, lets talk about a basic flaw:  Composition.  The original of this image was actually framed fairly well - the building was positioned more to the left and I had some open space to the right.  The trees in the background served as a nice subtle balance to the photo.  Unfortunately, the image was not straight and I had to rotate it a few degrees counter-clockwise to compensate.  This forced me to crop the photo tighter than I would have liked resulting in this image.  I feel that the cropped image places the building too close to the center and too close to the bottom edge.  Now, in my defense…I took this photo while I was conducting a site inspection for work.  I did not have the aid of a tripod, nor did I spend much time shooting the photo.  I honestly never expected this photo to fully make the cut.  If composition were the only issue with this photo, I may have taken some artistic license and let this one slip through.  But as you will see, it’s no my only concern.

The two real issues can be attributed to the type of lens I used.  This is my kit lens, a Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom.  It is not the ideal lens of choice for this shot.  The first problem is the bokeh, or lack-thereof.  I would have liked for the background areas to have a nice even bokeh, so I would have liked to have a much narrower depth of field.  At this focal length (27mm), this lens is incapable of achieving an aperture any larger than f/4.5, yielding a much larger depth-of-field than I would have desired.   The other problem is the slight lens flare that is visible where the foremost corner meets the roof (you may need to click to view the full-size image).  With the black-and-white conversion, the flare appears as a discolored circle which is - in my opinion - more displeasing than its full-color counterpart.  The view angle of this lens isn’t that wide, but its enough to be influenced by the sun.  This may have been a simple field correction - the lens came with a lens hood that would’ve blocked most, if not all, of the lateral sunlight.  Something so simple could easily have prevented the flare from occuring. With these two issues in mind, in addition to the composition issue I mentioned above, this image isn’t worthy of inclusion into my portfolio.

The bottom line is that this photo would not have been on the cutting room floor had I used a more appropriate lens.  I certainly should have been using a lens hood.  But the shot would have also benefited from a faster lens capable of a wider aperture.  I don’t have a more appropriate digital lens in my bag right now, but realizing that a need exists is the first step to correcting such problems.  It just so happens that my very next photography purchase will be a lens that will address these issues well.

In closing, I must once again remind you of my old photographic instructor’s advice:  “…you will learn far more from your failures.”  Analyzing your own works, as I did for you today, will only help you to grow.  I would highly encourage you to evaluate your failures regularly.

My wife and I got into a short discussion yesterday, but I feel that I got a lot out of it.  I am one of those guys that carries my camera around with me most of the time (aren’t we all)?  I think for the most part, my family and friends don’t really mind.  I don’t drag it out for an evening out, but I often have it with me around family gatherings (as my candid/portrait gallery will attest).  But I need to remind myself sometimes when I should just leave it at home.

Yesterday, for example, was my daughter’s baptism.  Like all other family events, everyone ended up back at my mother-in-law’s house and the kids would once again be together again.  Whenever the kids are together, I often find a lot of opportunities for some great photos.  But before we got off to the church, my wife asked me if I was bringing my camera.  I didn’t catch the special phrasing at first, but after a short discussion, it was implied that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring the camera.  As I said, it was a very brief discussion and it wasn’t at all heated, but let’s look at the situation for a moment.

It was my daughter’s baptism.  So even though we were at my mother-in-law’s house, my wife and I were essentially the hosts of the party.  I will admit, photography can be a distraction - it maybe pulls me away from interacting with some people.  So in all fairness, etiquette would dictate that I should not be distracted at my own party.  My job would be to make sure I spend a little time with everyone and to make sure that everyone is comfortable.  If I am doing that job well, there isn’t much room for photo opportunities. So, why risk offending anyone (especially my wife)?  That is a time where the camera stays at home.  And to think that the thought didn’t cross my mind until my wife brought it up.

There are any number of similar situations where the camera does not have a place.  You may have a need or a desire to remember the event, but the time is much more appropriate for a point-and-shoot camera as opposed to your semi-professional camera.  If you’re unsure, ask the opinion of your significant other or close family member.  They’ll tell you whether they think you should leave the camera at home.  Just remember to be considerate of others.

I keep statistics on the visitors to my site and I can definitively say that 33% of you are still using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).  You will notice that my site (and others) don’t look just right in IE6.  As much as I have tweaked my template for readability in IE6, it will at times break because of an javascript element or any number of documented flaws in IE6’s rendering engine.  It is suggested that you upgrade to a more current browser such as Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7.

If you are viewing this page in IE6 - it will appear messed up.  This is not due to problems with my page - it is a problem with IE6’s inability to properly render XHTML, HTML and CSS.  But don’t take my word for it, do a Google search on ‘CSS for IE6‘, and you will see hundreds of pages and tips targeted at tricking IE6.

Now, I feel that it would be unfair of me to suggest an upgrade based on readability alone.  But there are a number of security flaws that exist in IE6 as well.  For that matter, did you know that Microsoft has already stopped support on most version of IE6?  That means that they are no longer doing security updates for many of the versions available.  Even Microsoft wants you to upgrade to IE7 (a free download) for security reasons.

Security aside, there are a number of reasons to upgrade to IE7.  Usability is first and foremost on that list.  With tabbed browsing and an easier interface, your browsing is much smoother.  It’s rendering engine is also a lot faster than its predecessor - which means faster page loads.  And as I already mentioned, it’s rendering engine actually follows the latest HTML and XHTML standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (they set the standards).

Finally, if nothing else, IE6 is out of date.  It was created in 2001, almost 8 years ago.  IE7 has been around since 2006.  They’re even working on IE8 already.  Don’t you think it’s time to upgrade?

Here are some browsers that I would recommend instead of IE6 (in order of preference):

• Mozilla Firefox 3
• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 7 (I don’t recommend the BETA of IE8 yet)
• Opera Browser

Download one of these and try it out.  Among these, you will find something significantly better than IE6.  You will thank me for it.