As part of my ‘let’s focus on what matters’, I finally decided to calibrate my monitor, and my goodness, was I impressed as per the ugly blueish hue my non calibrated monitor had.
I chose a simple Spyder 4 Express, to which the working instructions are clear:
be sure there is no direct light shining on your display;
wait for at least 30 minutes after turning on your monitor before you start the calibration;
install the software (Spyder4Express 4.5.6 Macintosh) which is included in the package you buy;
plug the Spyder4 into a USB port and hang it over your display, assuring it sits flat on your screen;
and let the gadget do it’s work.
A few minutes later you’ll be watching your calibrated monitor, it doesn’t get much easier than this.
I remember reading once that getting into post processing doesn’t make much sense if you’re doing all your work on a non-calibrated monitor and I can assure you that I’m no longer going to doubt that statement. So, to cut my sermon short, instead of investing in that next camera or that other lens, do yourself a favor and get your monitor calibrated.
How long has it been since you were blown away by something: a view, a picture, an act of cheer genius by somebody, … It doesn’t happen too often, does it? When thinking of photography, these days everybody is a photographer with a platform to show his or her work. This means you come across a lot of shots, yet only every so often do you come across some work that literally blows you away, because it’s different, because somebody clearly had a vision and has put a lot of work into shaping that vision. In the recent past, to me that has been the work of Mate Bence, check it out here and decide for yourself.
More often than not, you have to prepare and do some effort in looking for things that can blow you away, such as the volcano which Sietske and myself climbed and which has gotten some air in the press last week (Burning love, man proposes to his girlfriend 11000 ft up an active volcano). Very often though you don’t have to go far to be blown away, yet you have to create the opportunity to make it happen, something that is highly unlikely to happen by getting stuck behind your computer. You have to go out there and be ready when the moment presents itself, either because you created it or out of simple luck (every so often it happens you are in the right place at the right time without having planned for it, yet even then, you went out, so you definitely had your part in allowing luck to get to you)! To bring this point home, please find this shot by my mother in law, she went out, always has her eyes open and always carries a camera and this shot is a result of that, I love the color and the pose.
To end with, I also want to share these two shots, a sky that blew me away during a work visit, and boy, was I happy I carried my camera.
All this being said, I guess the point I wanted to make is the following: be ready to blown away, create the opportunity and when it presents itself, let it happen. By doing so, chances become much higher that you’ll move from a happy snap shooter who gets the occasional shot towards somebody who creates work that blows people of their feet.