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I know I am showing my cards early, but I want to make sure this doesn’t break any Farktography rules. Just going for pure simple tongue in cheek humor.

I have another one of something else if this does break rules.

I wouldn’t think so, it was where I was going with that idea but then decided to go with other things on the list.

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Yesterday I submitted a sunset shot with sunspots to http://www.spaceweather.com, and they posted it on the main page!!

Yay, me! 😛 😀 😉

Can’t tell you how happy I am; I hope the one I submitted today gets in, too (see my gallery update under ‘worth a look?’, awesome full-sun shot).

I’ve been a little down in the dumps about my shots lately…nothing seems to gel with me, so to have the editors there lead with my shot, when there are so many other good ones, is really a needed boost.

Link to the pic directly, or you can link to the main site, above, to read the article and link to my description (and from there, to the image linked below).

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/pics/r/Russ-Vallelunga-sunset01_1337054985.jpg

It’s freaking awesome. Also, something arrived for me in the mail today:

My payment from Toronto Life Magazine for one of my shots running in an upcoming issue!

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I classify my niche as Photo journalistic and Street Photography, people are my passion and I want to tell stories through my work. I loath a posed shot, when the scrum of photographers at an event I am shooting gathers around an interesting person I go the other way. I am searching for unguarded moments where the person is not paying attention to the camera but still presents a compelling image:

My landscape work is dominated by where I live, so I like to find places that surprise people to learn it is in the middle of New York City. Most people have this image of New York City in their heads of giant skyscrapers and millions of people jammed shoulder to shoulder, so when I whip out an idyllic waterfall in Manhattan they are forced to rethink their image of the City.

I would like to shoot more still life and “art” photography, but I find myself limited by lack of studio space and quiet truthfully, an incomplete understanding of lighting. I would love to work with a true studio photographer and learn from them, something I am trying to do now.

I generally find the feedback to my photos positive. Because I shoot so many public events, people find photos of themselves doing whatever they were doing there (performers mostly) and they love the shots. I frequently get request from the performer for full res images which I always provide gratis. It seems only fair. My friends have started the “imposition phase” where they assume I will take photos of their friends and family when they come to visit, which is cool they love my work but kind of annoying they assume I will just do it for free. That is the one thing that actually makes me feel like I have “made it”, when people like my work enough to annoy me to get it 😀

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And now for something slightly different than my usual. Candid capture of one of my coworkers, he generally dislikes having is photo taken, so I make a point to snap one of him when the opportunity presents itself. Taken with the 50mm f1.4, and obviously some tweaking in Lightroom:

Used the split-tone for the monochrome look, brought the saturation of everything but the red channel to 0% and then lowered the red just enough to bring out the shirt some but not make it out of place with the rest of the image.

Dude, I would totally vote for that guy!

/Damn you Shephard Fairey
//Seriously, like the shot.

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It would be nice to see if there is a correlation between order of appearance in the thread, i.e. speed of posting, and vote getting. Might be hard to isolate that variable, since the people who put more effort into making good pics probably put more effort into posting them rapidly. Is there a statistician in the house?

I always post early, my first shot is usually is in the first five post, often in first two. It has zero effect on the vote totals. (I post in the beginning so I can get it done and move on with other things, plus I prepare my code ahead of time and can cut and paste straight into the thread.) Fark in general is good about voting for what it likes rather than what is on top. One of the reasons I keep participating, it’s really good feedback from an eclectic audience.

The most important thing is never let the voting change what you are doing. Shoot for you, fark the audience!

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Do you guys consider film cameras obsolete?

From a PURELY technical standpoint, yes. For the purposes of this theme*, yes. From a personal perspective, not only no but hell no.

*Not my theme, so that is pure opinion.

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So, do we get extra credit if a shot fills more than one item, for example recursive AND obsolete? Also, anyone going for them all either as an archive dive or new shots? We should have a special Farktography Prize for anyone who gets them all!

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Is CISS ready for the barrage of ‘Scarlet R’s’?

I don’t think I reused a single shot tonight, I like these themes so I can use shots I really love but haven’t fit a theme since I took them.

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emiliogtz: I’m going to go against the crowd and say the masked lady, because I like it a lot. (Mostly because it is also my style of photography) Of course, my style does crap all in voting, so the best idea is to do the ATV 😛

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Basically a second body is one of those things nice to have in most cases, if one goes down you have a back up. In busy situations where you need to switch rapidly between telephoto and wide shots, it is REALLY NICE but not mandatory.

I like having a second body, but when it came time and I needed the money it was the first thing to go.

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I was photographing a cheer leading competition for a friend whose daughter was on the squad, both the EF-S 18-55 and EF-S 55-250 were the wrong lens for the size of the gym. The telephoto was too narrow at 55mm to get shots of the whole team, and the standard was too wide at 55 to get individual close-ups when they were at the far side of the gym floor. I was swapping back and forth like a crazy person. A similar thing happened when I was at a blacksmith convention where I wanted to get full shots of the lecturer as well as detail shots of his work pieces.

Obviously, the easy answer is to get a second body.

I second that! Shooting with two bodies makes life so much easier and it is almost always cheaper than buying more lenses. Buy an older camera for your 2nd Body used, you’ll be glad you did.

/Sold my 2nd last year when I lost my job, I miss it.

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In the end, the Exposure is worth jack and shit, and Jack left town. I get a few click throughs from Gothamist.com using my work, but what I really get is the right to say my work appears regularly in the media. I am done with “exposure”

What bothered me the most is the Exclusive Rights, no one other than an organization like the AP or Reuters, or an equally respected large media organization is getting exclusive rights to my work, and if those organizations get those rights, they are going to pay and pay well. Giving away exclusive rights for exposure is just plain stupid.

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Man, the harder I try to think outside the box, the further I slide down the Vote Pole.

Also, am I the only person that sees the face in this tree?

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We are going from a species of tool creators to a species of tools,..

That good sir, is the single most eloquent, succinct and lucid sentence encapsulating 15 years of me ranting. I am keeping that one on a plaque, my business card and on my bumper.

Get on that, ennui. Copyright it and make me some bumper stickers dammit.

Yes… do that… much more universal and useful than my pithy comment you quoted above.

Coming soon to a Zazzle store near you!

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mumble grumble, could someone post http://www.staplermofo.com/farktography/marquetry.jpg for me?
Thanks!
Unless you don’t, then: “it’s cool, I understand… … … jerkface”

Got it!

[Author]

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