Aah! is the word here

Aah! is the word here

Digital Art Photography is debated, sometimes marginalized & although it's highly creative, it's distinguished as an obscure medium of photography. I believe in one or the other occasion one has to retouch photographs for any reason. Since RAW image formats seeing lot of market in terms softwares released to edit & enhance them, this medium of art gains true prominence.

Here is a guy - Rarindra Prakarsa based in Jakarta, Indonesia who burrs this fine line between digital photography and digital art creating splendid images. Frequently his images are featured on the front pages of photo.net these days. Most of his pictures are beautified with nice color tone, spectacular coloring techniques and well balanced frame. Rants apart, view these wonderful compositions. Eye treat for anybody who is from the den of Photoshop & digital photography.

I'm sure, 'how did he do that ?' is your first expression while viewing his photo work :)

>> Link to his marvelous digital art photography

Creative thinking :)

Creative thinking :)

This year seems to be like a premier Gizmo upgrade season for me. First buy was Digital SLR & now it's my long time wish 60GB Creative PMP.

I had 5GB mp3 playback Digital Audio Player* from Korean iRiver. Extremely good player for music, FM & recording. But it was lacking video playback capacity. My requirement of stuffing music files was shooting beyond 5 GB.

Since I'm not from the camp of iPod, I was always wishing to go for Creative Zen media player one or the other day. Precisely I was looking for a decent PMP*. When my jigri dost Mike went to Chicago for a onsite project, my creative-wish came into reality. He is getting this 60 GB power packed Personal Media Player* straight from Amazon, USA to Bangalore.

The good:

• Beautiful wide-screen display
• Durable design
• Intuitive interface
• Holds up to 60GB of music, movie, data etc.,
  
• Supports wide array of video formats
• Plays FM radio & presets stations
  
• Syncs with Outlook
• Removable battery
• CompactFlash slot is nice for photographers ( Good that my new DSLR uses Compact Flash Card)
  
• Good value for a widescreen PVP

More details from Creative Microsite:

*DAP ( Digital audio player)
*PMP ( Personal media player)

Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web App

Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web App

We've heard about ethnography primer. Now the buzz is about social design.

Social design is a subset of design that focuses on the social lives of users. It deals with the activities, behaviors, and motivations of people who work and play together through software interfaces.

In the last couple of years, web sites and apps focusing on social interactions have become increasingly popular. We've been seeing more and more designs that allow users to collaborate and share what they're doing with others, including such popular sites as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and Craigslist.

But only recently have design teams started to understand the complexities of dealing with thousands or millions of users who want to connect with their peers and coworkers in new and exciting ways. Several prominent incidents, such as the Facebook newsfeed blowup, have shown just how complex the social issues are.

Joshua Porter, an expert on the issues related to Social Design, has written a fantastic article outlining many of the common pitfalls that lead to failure when building social applications.

> Link to Joshua Porter's blog

Yes ! my first DSLR is on the way...

Yes ! my first DSLR is on the way...

Starting my gizmo squad upgrade with new DSLR system this year. I'm moving inch towards digital single lense reflex photography with new 10.2 effective mega pixels CCD based DSLR camera. Also getting two 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 & 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 Lenses.

As I'm still waiting for the delivery of 'this' lovely cam, will share the details later. In mean time please let me know your thoughts, ideas & tips on DSLR photography.

Few interesting links I found oflate (tag : Photography):

1. Photography voter.com
2. Ian Talbot
3. Silence domain.blog
4. Digital-photography-school.com

Shoot until u feel great..

Shoot until u feel great..

I recently got the following from a client...

Thus far, I would say that most of the images I've captured are boring and uninteresting. I want to learn to capture images that will stop people in their tracks. Images that will make people say "wow".

This got me thinking... How does one make really stunning photographs? What does it take? How can we aim for, and work toward achieving this lofty goal? So, here are five ideas to move you forward toward greatness:

• Define Greatness
• Define yourself and your work. Identify where you are now as and where you will be.
• Make photographs to please yourself
• Engage people you already dialogue through your work
• Learn from Experts

>> And over to Zivkov for more

Flickr link of the day
>> My friend Vyas has shot amazing pictures with his new Nikon D80

Beauty & the website !

Beauty & the website !

Ramp walker, model, artist, designer & wonderful human being in one cute package :).
wonderful human being because, her paintings don't lie. Wish I could work with Aagencynet.com !
Vist Larissa Meek's cool website

Experience Vision

Experience Vision

When we talk with design teams, more often than not, they articulate that "users are our first priority." Yet, as projects progress, the priority often shifts to the appropriate technology solution and the needs of the business stakeholders. It's not that the design teams don't think the users are important. But somewhere along the way, the primary focus moves off of the users' needs.

It wasn’t that the team wanted to ignore the users. It’s just the demands of the business units they served and the constraints from IT made serving the users take a back seat. In the day-to-day hustle-and-bustle, the long-term perspective gets lost.

When the long-term perspective vanishes, it becomes difficult to feel like you’ve made any significant progress. Sure, you’ll have checked many items off the ever-growing to-do list, but have you really improved how the business serves its customers?

To solve this, many teams are turning to an old tool: creating an experience vision. Is your design team having trouble focusing on the users? Does your organization have an experience vision?

- It's an interesting thought by Jared M. Spool of UIE tips.

>> Mr. Spool speaks about experience vision here

Card design

Card design

Wondering what's is this ?

It's a visiting card of a fitness trainer. Interesting, isn't it !?
( a small wafer of rubber printed with clumsy letters. Stretch to read the info on it. Truly intelligent flexing experience ! )

Business or visiting cards are not just printed piece of paper. They are finding innovative ways to appear on, they're visual identity of oneself. It speaks a lot about you & it's your first hand business impression. Like a neat website, visiting cards are like a promissory notes in personal interaction. A true goodwill reflected on small but effective piece of design.

The paper, material it's engraved on, its quality, typography, design, style, graphics, brief info, the cut, 'one-unique-catchy-thing, the pride it hums, the respect it surrounds -is simply amazing. Every time I receive somebody's business card I get into design swing -even I should create a unique & visually pleasing visiting card for myself. It just remained as a thought. Most of the time, employers give out a neatly designed cards for employees. It depends how satisfied you're with the company card & its design.

I've preserved so many nicely designed cards though the name on it is less important. But that shouldn't deter you from giving me one when we meet next time ;)

>> See the pool of business cards in flickr & in creativebits.org