The Anonymous Surfer by Nik Fletcher.

Sunset Photos at Sunset Bar and Grille in Duck NC by Christopher Blunck.

“Fireworks over Downtown San Diego” by Buto Hairs.

“Splash” by Nathan Makan.

Summer Ride by Rob and Lauren

“admirando… / admiring…” by Adalberto Pita.

“Carnivale” by Scott Bradley.

“Summer friends” by Ivan Gomez.

Who do you think should be crowned the first Mostly Lisa photography champion and win this super sweet prize :o?

Vote for your favourite in the comments below!

Learning how to correctly using diffusers and reflectors will make a huge difference in your portrait photography. But don’t just take my word for it… Watch and learn from this footage I captured of Scott Bourne and Scott Stulberg demonstrating how to use diffusion and reflection to get nice, soft light on ANPW contest winner, Cathy Chung at the Mormon Row Barns in the Grand Tetons.

Travel & stock photographer, Scott Stulberg never leaves home without his 32″ Photoflex diffuser and soft/gold reflector ($40). And if you’ve seen Scott’s photos you’ll know that he is a master at lighting his subjects.

Reflector/diffuser combos are light, portable, and fit nicely in most photobags, especially the Lowepro CompuTrekker backpack. If you have a smaller bag you can always get a smaller bounce! They come in loads of different sizes and are pretty affordable… mostly.

Like all things associated with photography, reflectors can get pricey and I understand that you might not have the bucks to buy a decent bounce. So if you are on a shoestring budget, head to your nearest craft or Staples and buy a few white board for $2 each. Then, put your subject in the shade so you don’t need to diffuse the sun. Done. cool.

I have a bunch of whiteboards lying around my apartment that I can quickly grab for indoor macros or for quick shoots on the fly. I still use them on shoots and find them really handy and quite durable.

Using a whiteboard as a bounce is cool and cheap.

Now go take pictures and be merry!

At some point during the last 10 years of this computer age, spelling and grammatical accuracy got tossed, phrases got shortened to two-finger tappables like “CU l8r”, and a whole new lexicon of ever-expanding nerd words like “w00t”, “l337″, “n00b” moved from underground Internet forums to mainstream media and your e-mail inbox.

More and more we see the Internet shaping the way we communicate with each other. The language of the Internet is fast-paced, constantly changing, and rich with cynicism and rebellion. After all, the age group developing and propagating this new iSpeak is Internet savvy teenagers belonging to Gen Z or the “Google Generation.” These kids grew up on the web, texting their friends in kindergarten, pirating mp3s for their iPods before puberty and coding complex websites during high-school geography class.

Gen Z is not afraid of breaking rules or experimenting with language. Just look at the plethora of fabulous spellings for the frequently used teen phrase “this sucks” in Internet slang, or LeetSpeak. There is “teh suxs” for everyday usage, “suxx0rz” for really bad suckage, or “suxxaga” when things just can’t suck any worse.

At first it may seem like there is no rhyme nor reason to these derivations, but like any linguistic code, it has a pattern. Once you know the pattern, it oesn’t-day, uck-say. What? No one remembers Pig Latin? Even if you are a complete n00b (”newbie”) on the Internet you will have run into your fair share of LOLs and emoticons, like this smiley, winking guy, ; ).

Whether you know the exact translation as “laugh out loud” or not, the meaning of LOL is universal. No matter where you are in the world, LOL means “I’m laughing”, while means “I’m sad.” This guy “:P” will get you out of a lot of trouble if you have the tendency to make snarky remarks that easily offend people — but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

The days of ruthlessly guarded spelling and grammar rules of our parents’ generation are slowly slipping away. With that being said, I am a bit of a stickler for grammar, and I’ll admit to a 50-per-cent increase in pulse rate when I see a beautifully crafted sentence like this one written on my Facebook wall: “i love your photo’s, their really good.” That was actually written by a high-school English teacher, so go figure. I’ve just had to let my Nancy Know-It-All tendencies slide a little and embrace the positives in this linguistic evolution.

So, for better or worse, the Internet is dramatically changing the landscape of human communication.

I see the evolution of language on the web as progress, rather than a slap in the face of steadfast English grammar rules. After all, we are a global community now. It’s time we start to think laterally in terms of language and communication. Plus, I never wuz a gr8 spellr anyway.

What do you think? Is our growing Internet language helping or hindering global communication?

And now for something completely different…

Blog World hi-jinks with my bff Amanda Coolong (TechZulu), Pete Cashmore (Mashable), Snaps (the Kangaroo), USB HubMan/kid, a Zannel squooshie schwag yoyo & a lone pigeon.

Powered by my sweet Mostly Lisa Viddler Tees, 2 hours of sleep, 3 chocolate chip cookies, a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, Yahoo mints, some nuclear green coloured caffeinated drink and Las Vegas.

I’ll be the first to admit it. This video is pretty weird, but it oddly enough captures the essence of a Blogging/Tech/2.0 conference very well. That essence smelling something like a mixture of day-old deodorant, guacamole, gasoline, melting plastic, glue, warm cookies, and dusty carpet. *sigh* I guess you just had to be there.

At least this time I didn’t dive bomb a geek with a USendit airplane or lose a whole bunch of dough with Rosie O’Donnell.

Thanks to rocknrollgeek for filming, the MindTouch girl that gave Snaps a special button, and Pete $more for just lookin’ fly.

PS. I think Amanda really needs to work on her interviewing skills if she’s ever going to be considered, like a serious reporter or whatever.

The ANPW contest winners, Pros, and I were up bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning at 5am, hoping to catch a beautiful dawn in Grand Teton Ntl. Park. The actual workshop *learning Aperture* was to begin later, but at first light, the students split up into two groups to take some pictures.

I trucked it to Oxbow Bend with Pros: Scott Stulberg & Steve Simon; and contest winners, Richard and Bryan. Everyone came prepared for the cold, except Steve, who was a bit whiny and runny nosed, kinda like a baby who’s had their lollipop ripped outta their tiny little hands by a mean photographer trying to capture pure misery and tears. I guess Steve is like me, you know, “they mostly come out at night… mostly” aka morning is for sleeping, afternoons are for eating breakfast.

Scott was determined to get a great shot, so we headed down this step muddy hill to the bank of Snake River. And then we set up our tripods, then everyone laughed at mind and pushed me in the mud… well they didn’t exactly push me in the mud, but I bet they wanted too,. Jerks. *huff* Then we pointed our lenses at the iconic view and waited. And waited.

No interesting light seemed to be happening on Mt. Moran, but suddenly a slight miss of fog started floating just above the water line behind us. No one else was worried about the immediate appearance of Death Eaters, but I methodically started chanting the Patronus Charm in my head and heart. As the fog began to roll, As the fog began to roll, Scott jumped and “yahooed”, changing his camera direction to started shooting the rolling fog and silhouetted trees against the wispy, pink sky.

It was a great lesson in always looking for shots, even when you are waiting for a sunrise to happen, look around, there maybe a great shot just waiting to be found like, a silhouetted bird in the distance, or a line of photographers tripods all in a row, or even interesting shots of reflected trees in the water.

Everyone was carefully switching lenses near the water, and Scotty reminded us to always keep one hand on your tripod near water. He has tragically lost two cameras in the water, so let him be the lesson for all of us.

Scott Bourne lead Catherine and Rob to Schwabacher Landing, but immediately left when no clouds were present because without clouds, landscape shots fall a bit flat. So, they headed up the road past the landing at Teton Overlook and grabbed some amazing panoramic shots of the Southern Tetons. Rob disappeared from the group with Martin aka the “Aperture Guru” for a while and ran into a crazy one horned elk.

After breakfast, the workshop got in full gear at the beautiful Jackson Arts center where Martin blew our minds with the dynamic power of Aperture. We imported our images, learned how to compare and select our favorites, and generally found out that Aperture can do most of the things we used to do in Photoshop, but it’s waaaay less complicated. I’ll do a dedicated post on Aperture in the next few days so you guys can see how cool it is.

What photo management & editing application do you use?

Yesterday I arrived in the small Mountain Resort town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I couldn’t help “oohing” and “ahhing” at the spectacular view of the mountains, winding rivers, and the gorgeous colours of the changing leaves as the plane descended over the Grand Tetons. 

Scott Bourne was worried that we might miss the the fall colours, but he couldn’t have picked a better week for the Aperture Nature Photography Workshop. The weather is perfect, the colours are spectacular and the wildlife is abundant — in fact just after arriving we saw a huge herd of Bison saunter across the road, munch on some grass, and then cross back over to the same spot they came from. Scott amused us by vocalizing the inner dialogue of a massive, sleepy looking guy. I believe his name was “Wilber”.

Since my arrival,  Scott and I have headed out on a sunset scouting mission at Oxbow Bend and a dawn shoot at Schwabacher landing. I’m not gonna lie. Dawn is freezing and early. Today it was around 25°F (-4°C) and I was way underdressed. Even with three layers I was c-c-c-cold. Scott loaned me a jacket and gave me these little heat packs that I put in my gloves which helped a lot. 

After the sun came up, we scouted the Mormon Row barns that are surrounded by tall grass and slender birch trees and framed by the Tetons. Brilliant.

I have to admit, I have never shot any nature this iconic, and it is a bit daunting trying to take a great and unique shot of something that has been photographed a million times. As a beginning nature photographer, my main goal is just to soak up as much knowledge from the pros as possible and try to do these impressive landscapes justice.

Tomorrow the entire group is heading out at dawn to catch the morning bliss. 5:00am start for me

*Interesting note: Only one other person, other than myself, who is shooting Canon. Has Canon really dropped the ball? I’m really interested in what you guys are using.

What camera are you shooting with: Nikon or Canon? And why?

The fact that mainstream media have made celebrity gossip blogger, Perez Hilton, synonymous with blogging, is one of the greatest tragedies of the web. If you haven’t been introduced to Perez’s particular brand of snarky, childish, eye-gauging celebutrashing, then you are in the minority. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 1.7 million viewers are happily clicking on PerezHilton.com everyday to get their daily dose of “he got fat, she got fake boobs, they’re engaged, now married, now divorced, and both in rehab” news.

And guess what?

Your shallow addiction to Britney Spear’s cellulite is making Perez rich — and the most famous blogger on the Internet.

In the last few months I’ve seen Perez spring up on the cover and the glossy pages of Rolling Stone, Wired, Time, and People. With the support of mainstream media, Perez’s Internet fame is mutating into TV shows, appearances on popular talk shows like The View, and spawning a whole Internet cesspool of copycat bloggers hoping to cash in on Perez’s success.

The latest celeb blog making a splash on the web is Ashton Kutcher’s South Park-esque, BlahGirls.com. From the man who brought us such quality programming as Punk’d and Beauty and the Geek, we have yet another Perez-cloned site aimed at teenage girls. This is what really gets my knickers in a twist: I understand the potential monetary gain and amusement derived from celeb gossip blogging, but seriously — do teenage girls need to hear any more about Britney flashing her cooch?

The mainstream popularization of trashy, trite, and slovenly written blogs like PerezHilton.com is giving bloggers a bad name.

For many people who aren’t exploring the intense array of intelligent and thought-provoking blogs on the web, Perez might be the only blog they read. And that is one of the great tragedies of the web.
Maybe I am biased. I’m a blogger. Most of my friends are bloggers. I’ve even got my Internet n00b (unskilled user) mother turned on to the idea of keeping an online journal of her recent foray into digital photography. I think that sharing experience, knowledge, and information through first-hand journaling through blogs is an enriching experience for both the author and reader.

Blogs provide a platform for the writer and the reader to strike up an instantaneous discourse through comments which happen in real time.

It’s personal, immediate, and socks you right in the gut if you aren’t careful. It’s freedom of expression at it’s finest. And true, there is a lot of blogging debris on the web, but if more reputable journalists like Matt Taibbi and Anderson Cooper toss their credibility and craft onto the web, hopefully the mainstream will take note and push the crap aside, even if it is crap made from the finest champagne and fair-trade, organic celery sticks.

Opinions & comments? You know where to put ‘em.

Since this was published in the Province this morning, I’ve already received a stack of unimpressed and angry Perez fans. Bring it I say! Plus, in a few hours I’ll be on a plane to Vegas. Should take the sting off.

Oh and if you live in Vancouver, pick up a copy of The Province, my first article may be worth something some day :p

Twitter redesigned some stuff. Moved tabs to the side and opened up the design. Personally I like it. The best new ‘tweek’ is the ability to reply to a Direct Message just by clicking a small mail icon on the right-hand side of the message you’d like to reply to.

Also, you can spice up your tweets or express the complexity of your emotions with TwitterKeys by the guys at The Next Web, i.e. ❉ ❥ ♘. It’s nothing complicated, just a pop up browser bookmarket of a symbol library where you copy and paste little unicode symbols anywhere, like on Twitter, Facebook or right here, on your blog: ☃.

Or just like, double click & copy n paste these puppies below:

What’s your favourite TwitterKeys symbol?

Next week, I am heading to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, along with 8 amazing photographers for the first Aperture Nature Photography Workshop in Grand Teton National Park.

The workshop brings together the wisdom and experince of 3 pro photographers, award-winning photojournalist Steve Simon, travel & stock photographer, Scott Stulberg & TWiP’s leading man Scott Bourne, with the enthusiasm of the 4 amateur photographers and me!

Gabriel Morosan snapped this candid of me on Kits Beach with the 70-200mm.

I’ll be blogging, vlogging, and documenting all the inspirational moments in the Grand Tetons and no doubt I’ll get up to some mischief at some point :D.

The amateurs were selected amongst thousands of talented phtoographers who entered their best nature or wildlife shot in the contest. You can see their stunning photos here.

Besides getting to learn from some of the best photographers in the business, the contest winners get some sweet prizes as well (USB Drobo, ThinkTank photo bag, Aperture, Lifetime Photrade membership…). As the official blogger, I may be privy to these prizes as well.

I’m so psyched about the ThinkTank rotation360 bag. I’ve been using the Lowepro Computrekker AW bag and it sits so high on my back that it completely messes up my centre of balance, and I have literally been knocked off my feet more than once. Both of those times being on the London Underground. Don’t worry, no biscuits were injured during the fall, only my knees and elbows.

With all my gear, this bag weighed 7.5kg (16lbs). Yikes. See what’s inside.

I think this will be a life-changing experience for me. Getting the chance to learn from these great photographers is truly priceless. Plus, Scott has promised to let me have go on his Nikon D3. My lil Rebel Xti is already pouting.

There are three more ANPW contests to Olympic, Yosemite, and Yellowstone National Parks, so if you are budding nature/wildlife photographer, I really encourage you to enter the next competition. You may even get to hang out with me. :p I’ll let you know when the next contest deadline is announced. Until then, get inspired and head outside and snap some awesome nature photos.

And remember to join my photography competition group on flickr and post your best shot of the summer. You’ve got until noon Thursday, Sept 18th to enter your photo.

The move from photographing Whiskers, the neighbourhood cat to Bianca, the 17-year-old leggy Italian model can be traumatic for both you and Whiskers. That didn’t make sense. I digress…

I’m not sure why people love shots of scantily clad female models. I find the subtleties of the western marmot’s feeding pattern a lot more interesting, but I’m guessing most of you will disagree with me. That’s why as a photographer /slash/ model who has experienced enough horror photo shoots to fill a pretty hardy paperback, I feel that it is my duty to inform you of some basic tips to help you take awesome model shots and avoid embarrassing, and often times, permanently scarring, photo shoots.

1. Hire a professional model.

Your girlfriend may be lovely, but unless she is a trained model, your shots will always look amateurish. Plus, asking your sweetie to pad her bra with tissues, suck in her gut, and angle herself so her butt doesn’t look huge, will never lead to relationship bliss.

If you are just starting out, then grab all your modelish friends, by all means, but modeling actually involves skill and if you want to take your shots from “Oh that’s really pretty” to “BAM! That could be in a fashion magazine”, you need a professional model.

What to do: Start by developing a relationship with a local modeling agency and offer to do a few “test shoots” with their up & coming models for free or a small fee. Beginning models will jump at this because they need to fill their portfolio as quickly and cheaply as possible. Because of my schister of an agent, my first test shoot cost me $900. Exactly. So if you take awesome shots and don’t act like a giant douche, then you’ll quickly move up the ranks and will be able to work with the more experienced models.

2. Hire a good makeup artist.

Details matter in this industry and bad makeup and hair can ruin your pictures. Unless you are a PS pro and can make Rosie O’Donnell look like Gisele Bündchen, then you need to get it right when you shoot. And if you are like most photographers you might not be completely in the know when it comes to picking the perfect shade of lipstick.

Oh I dunno, I much prefer “Innocent Starlet” to “Sassy Schoolgirl Scarlet”. I bet you didn’t even know lipstick had such lame and sexually stereotyped names did you? Exactly. That’s why you need a makeup artist.

What to do: Well, first don’t go down to your local department store and hire the first overly perfumed Chanel girl with black nail polished finger nails. Trust me. I mean really trust me. Not a good idea. Hire a proper makeup artist from an agency or professional salon. This will probably cost about $40. It’s worth it. If you don’t have the coin, check out the recent grads a professional makeup school, they are usually willing to do makeup for free for a print for their portfolio.

3. Hire a photo assistant.

No model will be impressed when you hand them a huge pelican full o’ gear and ask her to lug it over beached logs and heaps of sand. Trust me, it’s in your best interest to keep your model’s hair and makeup as fresh as possible. And that ain’t gonna happen if she’s truckin’ all your gear half way across the desert.

Ditto with holding the bounce. It’s awkward enough jamming yourself into crazy poses, let alone trying to hit those wacky poses while holding a huge white board in front of your face. Plus, if you are dealing with umbrellas and flashes and heaps of pricy gear, you’re gonna want to keep your photo gear protected from the elements, both weather and thieving humans.

What to do: If you don’t have the funds to pay for a qualified photography assistant, ask at local photography schools for someone willing to assist for free, or wrangle one of your friends or the model’s friend to help. Also, check out the bulletin boards at local camera stores. There are heaps of biz cards that might lead you to a good helper.

4. Don’t be creepy. Period.

Photogs who frequently hound models to drop their bikini tops, even in jest, get bad reputations with models and their agents. There are a lot of really awkward situations between a model and a photographer, i.e. changing clothes on a beach.

What to do: If you have a female assistant, ask her to hold a towel over the model or suggest that she changes in your car if it’s available. If none of these options are doable, make sure you bring a large towel, XXXL tee, or robe for the model to change in and make sure you keep your eyes in the opposite direction.

Also, be careful how and what you say when directing your model to move parts of her girly anatomy. “Hey darling, give your tits some love will you, I need perky perky for this shot!” And before you ask, yes someone said that to me. One more point, asking the model out after the shoot? Yeah. Not so much Creeperson.

5. Bring these things to photo shoots:

Bottled water to keep her hydrated. A snack if it’s a long shoot. Fainting models aren’t the funnest <– (yeah Steve Jobs, funnest.). A long puffy jacket or bath robe to keep her from freezing. A towel or blanket for her to sit on between set-ups. A water spray bottle to wet hair in the case of wind or to get that sexy dewy wet look. Hair spray because she will always forget and fly aways are PS hell. A lipstick or sample from the makeup artist so you can do touch ups during the shoot.

There you go! You’re on your way to become a photographer models love to shoot with and not that jerk she calls Pervy McPerverson to all her gossipy model friends.

Questions/Comments?

Oh and if you’ve had any model photo shoot horror stories, you know I want to hear them.