Snowboarding fun!

For my birthday this year, Christine decided to treat me to a day of snowboarding up at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. We hired some gear and headed up yesterday - cheap lift tickets mid-week made the deal more attractive and the slopes were pretty empty, so it was a good day for a beginner like myself. Christine, who hadn't snowboarded for a few years, jumped straight on her board like it was an old bicycle and was carving up the mountain, no problems at all. And, looking at this photo, you might think that I got the hang of things pretty quickly...

Looks pretty impressive, eh? Unfortunately, this was not the normal position for the day. Most of the time, I looked more like this picture...

Seriously, I lost count of the number of times that I fell flat on my face or butt. Snowboarding is really, really hard, and I just couldn't get the hang of certain necessary techniques, especially the all-important turns that move you from the toe edge of the board to the heel edge. As a result, I spent most of the day on my toe edge: in effect, standing on tippy-toes facing up the hill for extended periods of time. My calves got a thorough stretch, that's for sure!

Every time I'd try to transition to the heel edge (resting on your heels, facing down the hill), I'd lose control and fall down again. And again. And again. A couple of falls were real bell-ringers, as well... I slammed the back of my head hard into the snow a few times (not as soft as it might sound), and winded myself a couple of other times when my arm got caught between the snow and my ribs when I fell. Ouch. Still, everyone says that the first two or three times you go snowboarding, falling down constantly is simply part of the job description, so at least I'm not alone!

One thing I can't fault is Christine's instruction. She was a great teacher all day, even when I was having little temper tantrums... she showed far more patience than I ever thought possible. She laid out all the theory and techniques perfectly, but my body just couldn't turn theory into actuality! However, despite feeling like I have the body of a 90-year old with severe arthritis this morning, I actually had a really good, fun time yesterday and will definitely be back for more.

Just as we were leaving, the thick cloud that had been blanketing Mount Hood all day long suddenly blew away, leaving us with this spectacular view of the mountain to remember the day by. Stunning!

Posted in: , , , on February 18, 2009 at at 1:03:00 PM 0 comments  

Flickr, Getty Images and me!

Recently, Flickr – the fantastic photo-sharing service and community that I've been using for the last few years – announced that it was entering into partnership with Getty Images, one of the world's foremost stock photography sites. Together, they're working on The Flickr Collection, a library of rights-managed and royalty-free images derived entirely from the millions of photos that are on Flickr.

Over the last few weeks, Flickr and Getty have been sending out emails to select Flickr members, asking them to contribute images for the launch of the collection in March. So I was pretty excited to receive my email on the weekend asking for my participation!

Now, let's just say that I have a lot of experience with stock photography, both as a designer (buyer) and as a seller. Most stock photography sites out there (iStockphoto, Shutterstock, etc.) are what are known as "micro-stock" libraries, where photos are sold extremely cheaply and contributing photographers receive a correspondingly tiny amount of money per image sold. Getty is not one of these sites – it's world wide, almost ubiquitous within the design industry, and sells photos for what they're worth.

I've tried to sell photos through these micro-stock sites before and haven't had any luck at all. Finding and submitting an image that they feel they need and meets all their quality guidelines seems to be almost impossible, and I've usually given up in disgust shortly thereafter. I've had much better luck with people simply finding my photos on Flickr and entering into negotiations directly with me. So, hopefully, this new Getty Collection will take that success and multiply it by Getty's ability to promote their photos... if they actually accept my shots!

Because all I've done so far is upload the images that Getty is interested in to their servers for review. So I still don't know whether they'll accept any of them, but I'm hopeful that at least a few of them will make it through. Then, as the service expands, maybe they'll pick up on some other images hat I think are worthwhile.

In case you're interested, here are the seven images that Getty initially selected for review...

Ampelmann! One of my favourite shots, but I declined to nominate this one for a few reasons. Firstly, I don't have a high-resolution version of this shot (I was new to digital photography when I took this shot and only kept the final, Flickr-sized version of it for some reason), and it also contains copyrighted elements – the Ampelmann itself and the Dorling Kindersley map which it is sitting on.

Houses, Burano: I'm kind of surprised that this was selected, truth be told. It's a nice, colourful shot of an interesting location, but I don't think it's particularly wonderful.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Kiss: I'm also not submitting this one, for the simple fact that I didn't take it! This beautiful shot – of us – was taken at our wedding by Linda, Russ' wife... which kind of precludes me from submitting it as mine!

The Perfect Kiss: Christine and me sharing a smooch. Still deciding whether or not to submit this one... it's a very personal shot, plus the model release forms are a bitch to fill in!

Boats, St. Ives Harbour: This has always been a favourite of mine. I love the gentle curve of the boats as they recede into the distance.

Through The Grass: Another good one! Taken in Yellowstone National Park, I only hope that the quality of this pic is good enough – it was taken with my little Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot, which only takes 5MP pictures and they tend to be a bit JPG compressy...

Venetian Sunset: One of my most absolute most favourite photos ever! The colour really was like this on the day I took it – from the back deck of a vaporetto returning to Venice from the lagoon islands – and the little Nikon film camera I was using at the time (thanks, Dad!) somehow managed to capture it perfectly!

Winding Path: Paths are obviously in demand at Getty Images! I really like the curving composition and subdued colour palette in this image.

That's it so far! Hopefully some of these will make it through, and then maybe more in the future!

Posted in: , , on February 4, 2009 at at 8:57:00 PM 0 comments  

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