Are you yearning to step foot into a realm of enchantment? Do you long to soar through the air with delicate, glistening wings or venture into caves adorned with a kaleidoscope of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and other precious gemstones? We believe that such dreams are among the most wondrous we can experience, even though they must eventually yield to the waking world. As time passes, the memories of Wonderland fade from our conscious minds.
However, there is an artist who preserves that dream within her heart. Meet Verba Mystica, a 33-year-old photographer and digital artist with over 12 years of experience. Through the power of AI, Verba conquered depression and breathed new life into the realm of fantastical digital art. If you yearn for a gentle reminder of what Wonderland holds, be sure not to miss the captivating compilation below!
Prepare to lose yourself in caves adorned and sculpted with the most radiant and coveted gems your imagination can conceive. You can check Verba’s more amazing work on Instagram.
PA live! (WBRE) — Wednesday on PA live!, Chris and Rachel spoke with Samantha Ward, Owner of Samantha Ward Photography LLC, and Jonathan Edwards, Owner of Diamond City Studios 570 Drone.
Samantha and Jonathan talk about their upcoming Grand Opening event on May 27th at 6:00 p.m. at Diamond City Studios.
They also list some of the Buddy Vendors, who have provided special items for the Ultimate Wedding Basket, which you could take home at the Grand Opening. Check out the list of Buddy Vendors in the flyer below.
Courtesy: Samantha Ward Photography LLC
For more information, visit Samantha Ward Photography’s Facebook page or website.
Alongside the new Fujifilm X-S20, Fujifilm has released the Fujifilm App for its GFX and X Series cameras for seamless connectivity between the camera and smart device. According to Fujifilm, the new App makes a faster and more stable connection than the previous app, Camera Remote.
The Fujifilm X-App allows users to operate a GFX or X Series camera remotely via a connected smartphone or tablet and images can be checked in the Live View mode. It’s especially helpful for capturing group shots, photographs that include the photographer and for fixed-point shooting.
There’s also a new ‘Backup/Restore’ function that enables users to save the camera’s settings (including the Shooting Menu and Setup Menu) in the app and then reapply them to the camera. The app allows ‘Favorite’ camera settings to be saved and reapplied for different subjects and shooting situations. The camera settings can also be sent to several cameras of the same model.
The X-App debuts a new ‘Timeline’ function that collects and displays the transferred images with their shooting information including the camera and lens used, the number of images taken, the shooting location and more . It creates a photo diary style display. Meanwhile, ‘Activity’ automatically collates and displays the cumulative shooting information.
Fujifilm’s X-App is free and is available immediately for Android devices while iOS users have to wait an extra day (until 25th May 2023).
If you’re an artistic person, it can be hard to worry too much about money when your mind is consumed by creative thoughts and considerations for your next project.
However, the reality is that if your finances aren’t ship-shape, then you won’t have the means to continue pursuing your passion, especially as a career.
With that in mind, here are some must-know tidbits and wise words on all things finance-related so you can stick to the straight and narrow, or perhaps even leverage unexploited opportunities, regardless of your experience level.
#1 Building a Solid Financial Foundation
As a creative professional, such as a photographer or visual artist, establishing sound financial habits is crucial to your long-term success and stability.
To build the foundation for financial well-being, it’s essential that you master budgeting effectively. This means keeping track of your income and expenses while setting realistic goals. Determining where you can cut costs without compromising on quality enables you to allocate more resources toward your core business objectives.
Another vital component of your financial base is having an emergency fund in place. This reserve should ideally cover three to six months’ worth of living expenses so that unexpected setbacks do not derail you entirely. Regularly contributing to this fund helps safeguard against unforeseen situations like equipment failure or client disputes.
By focusing on these core principles, you’ll set yourself up for steadier growth and greater resilience against the inherent uncertainties faced by creatives in their careers.
#2 Navigating Cash Flow Challenges
As a photographer or creative professional, one of the primary financial challenges you may face is the irregularity of income streams. During some months, business might be booming while in others, it could slow down significantly. To navigate this uncertainty effectively, mastering cash flow management becomes crucial.
Start by creating a system that allows you to track both your income and expenses within specific time frames. This way, you can identify patterns in your earnings and adequately prepare for leaner periods when necessary. Accurate forecasting becomes easier once these patterns are recognized – enabling better financial planning throughout the year.
To streamline this process further and reduce potential errors due to manual calculations or oversight, consider utilizing specialized software tools designed specifically for managing finances. Examples include QuickBooks Online or Wave Accounting tailored for small businesses and freelancers. Mobile apps like Mint.com or You Need A Budget (YNAB) help with personal budgeting needs by compiling valuable data into easy-to-understand visualizations – assisting users to make well-informed decisions about their budgets.
Additionally, consider developing multiple revenue sources related to your field of expertise to diversify earning potential further. Such opportunities might include offering workshops, selling prints online or taking commissions for special projects during slower seasons.
#3 Exploring Speculative Investment Opportunities
While ensuring stable income and maintaining a solid financial foundation are vital, it’s also essential to explore diverse investment avenues that could potentially offer higher returns. As part of constructing a balanced, market-beating portfolio, consider including speculative investments like options buying, cryptocurrencies, or alternative assets.
So what is buying options? Well, it refers to the practice of trading in contracts that provide an investor with the opportunity, but not obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price before its expiration date. This process allows for leveraging small amounts of capital toward significant potential gains while minimizing risk exposure.
Cryptocurrencies represent another high-reward venture worth researching. These digital currencies are gaining widespread acceptance both as long-term investments and payment methods for goods and services. However, their value can exhibit extreme volatility, so thorough diligence is crucial prior to any investment.
Similar attention should be devoted when investing in art collections or other unconventional assets with growth prospects unique from traditional stocks and bonds. Although speculative ventures may carry inherent risks due to uncertain outcomes, incorporating them into your well-balanced financial strategy can ultimately contribute positively towards overall wealth generation goals.
#4 Tax-Saving Strategies for Creatives
Taxes are an unavoidable aspect of running any business, including creative endeavors like photography or visual arts. However, with astute tax planning and awareness of opportunities tailored to your unique financial circumstances, you can minimize potential liabilities while remaining compliant with local regulations.
Firstly, familiarize yourself with available deductions specific to freelancers or small-business owners in your industry. Eligible expenses may include equipment costs, travel and transportation outlays linked to work assignments, relevant education fees or professional development activities and even home-office maintenance expenses.
Next, setting up a retirement account such as a Roth IRA (Individual Retirement Account) could potentially provide valuable tax benefits. Contributions made towards these accounts grow on a tax-deferred basis while withdrawals during retirement can be tax-free under certain conditions.
Finally, consider seeking the assistance of a certified accountant specializing in taxes for creatives if navigating this complex terrain seems daunting. Their expert guidance will enable you to capitalize on legally established deductions and exemptions, ultimately leading to better financial stability due to reduced overall annual liability.
Wrapping Up
Take these finance tips for creatives onboard, and also act upon the advice rather than simply absorbing it passively, and you’ll soon see tangible benefits in your bank balance.
Somebody in a little box sat in the middle of the parking lot at West Goshen Shopping Center. They were alone because there wasn’t room for anybody else. You dropped off canisters of film from your car.
A couple of days later you revisited and picked up paper prints of your photographs. It was expensive and time-consuming.
Eastern State Penitentiary as photographed by Howard Sundwall/Courtesy photo
Thankfully, times have changed. With digital cameras, we now get instant gratification. In this virtual world, we can almost instantly send photos to Grandmom with Facebook, text, or email.
Does anybody remember postcards? Now our friends can even follow us along on a road trip, almost in real-time.
Right away, we can view our recently snapped photos through our cell phones, which we lug around much more often than most of us carry around a “real” camera.
Fotomat didn’t have a chance. It’s gone like buggy whips, legroom on airplanes and so many print editions of newspapers.
And, for better or worse, we regularly post photos of meals, babies, dogs and sunsets.
Now, I shoot photos with my cell for the paper. The quality is pretty good, but I miss out on the darkroom experience.
Call me a reactionary, but we are missing something. I loved to work in the darkroom developing film and prints. Like the ketchup ad, it was all about the anticipation.
I’d zap a 35 mm negative with a bright enlarger bulb, shooting an image onto a blank piece of photographic paper.
I still remember the divine smell of photographic chemicals — developer, stop, fix, hypo.
Place the print face up in developer under a red safe light and watch it gradually appear. Time-consuming, yes, but pure black-and-white magic.
We’d fool around with a pinhole camera. Thirty-second exposure times replaced 125th of a second. We created “positives” rather than negatives and everything that was black turned white and all that was white was black. Subjects became ghosts.
The pinhole camera was a Quaker Oats box with a small hole poked through a piece of taped-on tinfoil. Because the photographic paper was placed on a curved surface — inside the oatmeal box — everything was joyfully distorted and at weird angles.
Photography is fun! So, it was nice to attend a meeting of the Chester County Camera Club, which regularly meets to exchange ideas, discuss techniques and share their enthusiasm for photography.
That night’s speaker was Svenne Juul, the club’s outings coordinator.
Juul showed us something that he refers to as “Storytelling through Living Stills.”
With a laptop and a screen, he used several still photos to tell a living, breathing story. It looked a little like a movie, but the photos were taken in rapid sequence with a still camera.
“You are telling a more complete story than with just a single image,” Juul said. “It looks like there is life in the still image.”
One sequence depicted athletes running a foot race. It’s an exciting technique and Juul seeks both a patent and the help of club members. Local photographers are going to be part of the process to improve this already way cool technique.
Then it got complicated. Most of the 30 or so people in the room started peppering Juul with questions. Had I missed something here? Together, these photographers were already intensely embracing this new process. Like a developing print, they were exposing the concept, improving on it, and learning from the inventor.
There was a buzz in the room as photographers were collaborating after learning about something they’d just heard about. Although technically, the conversation was way over my head, it was fun.
Past club president Howard Sundwall said that since retiring in 2013, he’s bought six expensive cameras. We talked about the changes.
He said that an advantage of digital versus film is the ability to post-process and use software to photoshop.
Sundwall told me that the brain has two hemispheres — the right, the creative side, and the left, the technical side.
“With photography today, both sides of the brain are actually active,” Sundwall told me. “One side is dedicated to making a beautiful artistic image, while the other side can be directed to technology that today’s cameras and software make available.”
Current club president Denise Molzahn enjoys sharing beauty with friends and family and practicing art through photography. She agreed with Sundwall and likes to improve and impact the image with digital software.
Virginia Apostolacus is the vice president and a former president of the 134-member club. She enjoys creating and photographing everything, with few distractions.
Since 1933, photographers have been gathering in Chester County. That year, 12 men calling themselves the West Chester Camera Club met in an old garage on Church Street, while another club met in an upstairs room of the Coatesville fire station. The two clubs held annual competitions until the Coatesville club disbanded during World War II.
An obituary notice from the Daily Local News in 1991 credited Herbert Jeeves, Bill Yetter, Len Zeidman and Hank Rosenberg with founding the Chester County Camera Club in 1982. Since then, the shutterbugs have met in banks, churches, restaurants and community buildings to share information and photographs, to develop their skills and enjoy each other’s company.
Betsy Wilson is a former club president.
“I love the way it makes me observe nature, people and life,” Wilson said about photography.
The club recently took field trips to Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia’s Chinatown, the Cowtown Rodeo, Hagley Museum, Valley Forge, Reading Terminal Market and the Keurner Farm, which inspired The Wyeth Family.
“It is a wonderful place to photograph and step back in time,” Wilson said about the Keurner Farm.
Wilson talked about the ability to snap photos locally.
“We don’t need to travel to get good photographs,” she said, “So many want to travel to Ireland, which is great, but you can observe beauty in your backyard and ordinary subjects like Andrew Wyeth did.”
Member Carol DeGuiseppi likes photography because she can capture the moment.
“I like to remember things and I like to share what I love,” she said. “I like to create art with my photographs.
DeGuiseppi is a volunteer at Longwood Gardens and said that everywhere you look there is beauty.
“I’m always seeing something I haven’t seen before,” she said, about Longwood. “It gives me ideas for my garden at home.”
Get inspired. Create art. Make something great. Record for posterity. Capture an instant. Have fun with your cell camera! And, no Fotomat is required.
Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and Chester County native. He will tell you that while photos are free, phones are still expensive. The best way to contact him is at [email protected]
The Fujifilm XF 8mm F3.5 R WR is an ultra-wide angle prime lens designed for use on APS-C format X-series cameras such as the Fujifilm X-T5 and Fujifilm X-S20. Its 8mm focal length gives a 112° field of view similar to a 12mm lens on a full-frame camera.
Fujifilm constructs the XF 8mm F3.5 R WR from 12 elements arranged in 9 groups including 3 aspherical elements and 2 ED elements to control distortion, spherical aberration, and astigmatism. According to Fujifilm, this enables the lens to deliver outstanding image-resolving performance with edge-to-edge sharpness.
The Fulfil XF 8mm F3.5 R WR is 52.8mm long, accepts 62mm filters, and weighs 215g – making it unusually compact for such a wide lens. That means the lens is a great choice for a wide range of shooting situations, from landscapes captured during a long walk to architecture, snapshots and travel photography.
The lens uses an internal focusing mechanism that delivers AF speeds as fast as 0.02 seconds, which is useful for dynamic action shots.
Fujifilm has weather-sealed the Fujinon XF 8mm F3.5 R WR’s barrel at 10 locations, making it dust- and weather-resistant and capable of operating in temperatures down to -10℃.
In addition, the front element has a fluorine coating that repels water droplets and fingerprints, making it easier to keep clean,
Fujifilm Fujinon XF 8mm F3.5 R WR price and availability
The Fujifilm Fujinon XF 8mm F3.5 R WR is set to go on sale at the end of June and is priced at £799 / $799.
No matter how much we yearn for a carefree and joyful life, the daily challenges and dilemmas often consume us, stealing away our genuine happiness. However, during these trying times, the internet becomes a beacon of hope, offering us a source of delightful content to reignite our inner joy.
That’s why we’re here to provide you with your daily dose of adorable amusement through a collection of 29 captivating photos capturing animals in the embrace of love. These heartwarming images are guaranteed to thaw even the coldest of hearts. So, without further ado, scroll down and immerse yourself in the heart-melting beauty of these pictures below.
Here in this gallery you can find 25 heartwarming animal photos to thaw your frozen heart. All photos are linked and lead to the sources from which they were taken. Please feel free to explore further works of these photographers on their collections or their personal sites.
Sony has announced the ZV-1 II, price tag €1000 / £870, a successor to the popular ZV-1 vlogging camera which comes with an enhanced lens, AF and recording capabilities.
Chief among the Sony ZV-1 II’s specs are a refined lens, this time an ultra-wide zoom to better accommodate groups and to give selfies more environmental context. The new Sony camera’s Zeiss Vario Sonar T* 18-50mm F1.8-4 lens (35mm equivalent) can also extend to 100mm using Sony’s digital Clear Image zoom. What’s more, zoom operation is possible with selectable zoom steps via the camera’s touch screen.
Aimed at more experienced vloggers, the Sony ZV-1 II uses a 20.1-megapixel 1-inch sensor paired with Sony’s BIONZ X image processor. Sony says the new ZV-series camera performs better in low light and captures better bokeh than its predecessor. In fact, the ZV-1 II features a customisable button on the camera body to adjust bokeh.
The ZV-1 Mark II records in 4K at up to 30p, with S-Log3 and S-Log2 recording options for greater dynamic range. New to ZV-1 II are a series of Cinematic Vlog settings designed to make your footage look more professional via a single tap on the camera’s touchscreen. Users can also choose from four Moods and 10 Creative Looks to apply to their movies or stills.
Sony says the ZV-1 II touchscreen is fully touch capable, unlike the original ZV-1 which offers only basic touch operation. What’s more, Sony has aimed to recreate the smartphone experience, allowing users to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access frequently used settings. Vertical recording is also possible using Sony’s optional grip.
Shot Mark mode lets you tap the screen to flag key moments in your videos to help you locate them easier in post-production, and the camera’s new USB-C port allows you to livestream by connecting to a computer or Xperia smartphone.
Other new features on the Sony ZV-1 II include the addition of Animal subject recognition in addition to Humans, built-in ND filter and a revamped 3-capsule built-in microphone that lets you change directivity of the audio from front, rear or all direction. Sony is also releasing a new option ECM-G1 microphone that mounts to the camera’s hotshoe.
Sony ZV-1 II Price & Release Date
The Sony ZV-1 II price tag will be €1000 / £870, with a release date set middle of June 2023.
BROOKLYN (PIX11) — Photoville, a free photography festival, is returning to Brooklyn Bridge Park next month.
The festival, returning for its 12th year, will start on June 3 with over 80 exhibits across the five boroughs. Attendees can expect to see the iconic shipping containers displaying hundreds of images, as well as free open-air exhibitions and interactive workshops.
“This year, we’re thrilled to present a version of the festival that unites its past and present: bringing the storage containers back to Brooklyn Bridge Park and turning them, once again, into temporary sites of urgent, lively, and inspiring photography, as well as featuring exhibitions in all five boroughs,” said Photoville co-founder Sam Barzilay.
Opening weekend will feature public events with artist appearances, plus food and beverage vendors from Smorgasburg. For the full programming during opening weekend, visit photoville.nyc.
Adobe has updated Photoshop to incorporate its Firefly creative generative AI technology via a new Generative Fill tool, allowing users to add, extend or remove content from their images with simple text prompts.
The integration of the Firefly-powered Generative Fill tool will automatically match the perspective, lighting and style of your images, promising to speed up your workflow. What’s more, Generative Fill edits in a non-destructive way, creating new content in ‘generative layers’ that allow you to reverse the edits without damaging your original image.
Adobe says the new generative AI tool in Photoshop will enable users to explore more creative possibilities and test concepts.
Firefly is trained on Adobe Stock’s hundreds of millions of high-res licensed images, which are safe for commercial use and won’t infringe on other people’s intellectual property.
Photoshop’s new AI Generative Fill tool is available in the desktop beta app today and will be generally available in the second half of 2023. Generative Fill is also available today as a module within the Firefly beta app.
