Apple Aperture 3.0 Awesomeness

I’m usually a flag waiver for artistic vision rather than gear or the tools of our craft, but this calls for an exception: just minutes ago Apple announced the much anticipated Aperture 3.0. And it’s the bomb. I’m lucky enough to have been using it for several months now.

While I’m no gear or product reviewer, there’s few things I think photographers will want to know about this new release. First, and most importantly, driving this software feels like you’re driving a German sports car. Aperture 3.0 has the power and grace that we’ve come to expect from Apple. Second, it’s got new features for days...

My favorites off the top of my head:

_Brushable, scalable, adjustments. Yep. They nailed it. Full selective controls on every adjustment you want.

_Video. Apple nailed this too. Aperture 3.0 has full multi-media capabilities. That’s right. Aperture handles all those video files from your HD dSLR. Import, rate, scrub video, trim your clips. Add audio. Make a full-on MOVIE within Aperture or export to Final Cut Pro. Insanely cool.

_Adjustment present on import. Seriously cool. Shoot tethered in your studio and want the photos to look sexy before the model or art director can see the RAW file? No problem. This kicks ass.

_Customizable. I’m a whiner when I can’t configure my software the way I want it. No worries, here. Fully customizable.

_Best little hidden nugget you wouldn't know? The skin smoothing feature is absolutely unbelievable. When we need to smooth the skin of a model, it’s usually quite a process. Now it’s so damn easy, I’ll probably even smooth my skin up before I send pictures to my mom.

For the full kahuna, check out Apple’s Aperture page here. Since I’ve been using this software for a while, I’ve got a cameo video at Apple.com that features my Songs For Eating and Drinking series. Check it out if you've got time today. And of course, holler at me with questions or comments.

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Michal Garcia Wins Trip to Our Studio from Hong Kong

If you were tuned in here during the 8 weeks before the New Year, then you knew that I was giving away roundtrip airfare and accommodations to come visit us here at the Seattle studio from anywhere in the world. Here's the original post. All you needed to do? Post pictures of you with my latest book The Best Camera Is The One That's With You to my Facebook Fan page and/or my TBCITOTWY Amazon Page.

The winner? Michal Garcia. And he's really hurting my pocketbook, because we're bringing him all the way from Hong Kong. But it'll be worth it. Please give a shout out below.

Hundreds of entries came in from all over the world. I was blown away, humbled, excited, sometimes even a little freaked out. People effing basejumped while reading my book! People also jumped out of airplanes, played fetch with their dog, ATE it, fed it to insects, slept with it, played music with it, read it while buildings exploded in the background, and traveled to the farthest corners of the earth. People took it rock-climbing, camping, road-tripping, and more. They even made mock Geico ads with it. You really should take a moment to poke around some of the thumbnails of the gallery of images that came in via Facebook. And a couple hundred more here at Amazon.

It was fun, funny, and inspiring. In the end, while lots of people entered lot of images (there were some insanely creative ones that came in) and actively participated in the conversation, it was Michal Garcia--with photos of TBCITOTWY and sleeping security guards, kids playing in the street, rooftop antics and highrises in Hong Kong that took the cake. What helped him win? He entered a ton of images, he traveled with the book, he was active in the conversation and really got into it. In short, he participated deeply and had fun with it. We'll be sure to fill everyone in when he comes to Seattle...

If you haven't bought a copy of the book yet, I'd be honored if you'd drop your $13 on The Best Camera Is the One That's With You here at Amazon.. Beyond that, thanks so much to all of you who participated, and check out a few more of Michael's entered images after the jump...[click the 'continue reading' link below]
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Mike Relm Slays It

Not sure what "it" refers to in the title of this post, but whatever "it" is, Mike Relm's blowing "it" up. I had the good fortune of getting to know Mike last week at Sundance. His live DJ performance mixing both audio and video, was one of my highlights from the festival.

Turns out Mike is also a solid director too--one you should know about--as evinced by the video above. I'd had a similar idea before, but Mike executed it far better than what was going on in my beany little brain. Make sure to watch the whole vid to "get" it. Enjoy this viewing pleasure on a happy Monday.

After the jump, another piece Mike just directed--starring himself--to help launch the Google Nexus One phone...[click the 'continue reading' link below]
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Keep up the great stuff Mike.

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Live Broadcast of Our Photoshoot Tomorrow (Friday!)

Yep. You read that headline correctly. We're broadcasting our upcoming photo gig LIVE from our Seattle studio via the ol' internet on Friday, January 29 from 10am to 6pm (PST, which is GMT -8). This is tomorrow for most of you, but today for some! This is a total experiment, but we need your help. Please read on.

The nuts and bolts: we're shooting the album cover and promo materials for a great alt country/punk band called Brent Amaker and the Rodeo. Expect 5 men in all black; 3 beautiful, scantily/sex-ily dressed ladies; in a country-punk meets modern studio set. Very free form. Very experimental. There is no "client". This is a collaboration.

How do you tune in to this new Chase Jarvis LIVE thingie? It's easy. Just go to this url: www.chasejarvis.com/live at any time during the hours specified above.

From there, you'll be able to watch the live stream from the studio. You'll be able to see and hear the entire thing, soup to nuts. Watch the set building, the styling, the shooting, the digital asset management, the gear, you'll even get to join us for lunch and some afternoon cocktails. And it's totally interactive. You'll be able to ask questions of anybody and everybody on set--all 20 of us--via twitter (@chasejarvis) and a live chat embedded in the url above. And please use hashtag #cjlive.

There's even -- you guessed it -- a... [click the 'continue reading' link below--lots more info..]
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...break midday where the band will perform a short set, just to whet your palette and keep the mood light.

The qualifier: this is in BETA. Scratch that, uber-BETA. And this is where we need your help. We need your participation. We think it might break, we think it could rock, we think it could be really interesting, but in order for us to find out the answers to these questions, we need your eyeballs, keystrokes, and your network of friends. We want you to ask questions via twitter and the chat. We want you to tell you friends to tune in and help us test out this concept. If it breaks or sucks, you'll have helped us. If it's a out of the box success (we doubt it), you'll have been there first.

Here's the rough schedule:
**all times are Pacific Standard Time, Seattle (GMT -8), everything is subject to change and probably will....

10:00am - 12:00noon Set building, talent styling, gear rundown

12:00noon - 3:00pm Full shooting mode, lots of options, experimenting

3:00 - 3:30pm Brent Amaker and the Rodeo perform a short set, cocktails

4:00 - 5:00pm Miscellaneous additional shooting, interviews

5:00 - 6:00pm Set strike/breakdown, interviews

6:00pm Off the air

Here's our the band:


You'll have to tune tomorrow in to see the rest of the beautiful talent ;) Hope to see your tweets and questions in the chat tomorrow!

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Creativity and Social Media at Sundance [Video]

Whoa! Just back from the Sundance Film Festival where I was fortunate enough to sit on a panel as a part of the Twitter 140TC Conference. The panel was called Filmmaking in the Age of Twitter: How Affordable, Innovative Tools are Transforming Hollywood . On the panel was yours truly, along with Joeseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer and Hesher--new film with, gulp, Natalie Portman), Levar Burton (Star Trek, Roots), and Marcin Teodoru (Circle Films). The panel was moderated by Steve Broback.

The place was packed - standing room only - with lots of good discussion. Thanks to G-Tech and videographer Rob for sending this my way for posting! It's all their hard work that made this recording possible.
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Boom! Marko Slavnik Wins $100,000 From Nikon Festival

Boom! Huge congrats to Marko Slavnik for taking home the $100,000 Nikon Festival prize for his short film “Chicken vs. Penguin”. I was lucky enough to speak with him by phone from the Sundance Film Festival yesterday to congratulate him--what a great guy. Humble, hardworking and knows how to tell a good story on film. When I asked him what he planned to do with the mooolah, his response was exactly what I’d hoped to hear. First and foremost, he plans to repay all the people who volunteered and supported his efforts to make the short. Second, he plans to stuff the rest of the dough right where you’d want a talented filmmaker like himself to put it: into his next movie. The balance of his winnings should allow him to create what he wants to do on his terms. Everybody, please give it up for Marko. Mad respect.

Boom Boom!! Much respect to the winner of YOUR choosing too. Audience choice--leading in votes and views--was Josh Friedberg for his film “New York State of Mind”, a series of gorgeous visuals of his favorite city in the world. As a former owner and founder of 411 video magazine, a video skate zine based out of southern California that he sold and subsequently folded. I learned from Josh that he intends to put most of his winnings back into the skateboarding community that has given him so much as an artist by using the money to revive the 411 video mag as a platform for himself and others to explore video and skateboarding. So cool.

It was an honor and a treat working with my two newest pals and co-judges @ijustine and @rainnwilson. Our task was not an easy one, weeding over 1000 films down to 1 winner. Mad respect to Nikon for allowing this to be open to all formats, for providing expressly meaningful prizes (ie, not just gear, but CASH and gear), and for encourage filmmaking in general, not just their brand. AND here's to hoping Nikon believes in this enough to give us the Nikon Festival 2.0 next year. Thanks again to everyone who participated. Thanks to B&H for the D3s hookup for the festival. And overall, it was truly an inspiration to watch all this come together. Both Winner's vids after the jump - click 'continue reading'. Check them out. Love to hear your thoughts.

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Chicken Vs. Penguin by Marko Slavnik. $100,000 Winner




and the audience award worth $25,000 goes to....
New York State of Mind by Josh Friedberg



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$10,000 For 2 Images

Wanna make $5000 for an image? Check it.

Hopefully you remember the campaign I shot for SanDisk down in New Zealand last autumn. The images were a blast to create and--if you recall--SanDisk was cool enough to let me blog/tweet/facebook about shooting the ads in real time, which made it the first global campaign of its kind.

We made a whole lotta videos and did a several follow up posts, and I received a ton of great feedback from this community about how beneficial this was. If that was true for you, then this might just be the gift that keeps on giving...

SanDisk has decided to give back to our community in the form of pure cash money. They partnered with the kickass crew at Freeskier and Snowboard magazines to bring you The Best Photo Sequence contest. Simple idea: the best skiing and the best snowboard photo sequence selected from a panel of judges that include the photo editors from both magazines and yours truly, will EACH win $5000 bucks cash and have their image run in the mags. Contest just started and runs thru April 1. So get your gear and some gloves and go make some magic.

[update: possible good news for international readers. we're hearin' ya about the US only thing. That said, SanDisk is being SUPER cool, there's a bunch of legal hoops to jump thru here in the US to make contests avail in other countries, but they're working on it. If the legal team can get it pulled together this week, we'll let you know. Stay tuned!]

As an aside, this is sorta cool. We had this crazy idea to create a TV show outta our trip down under making this campaign. We pitched it to The Ski Channel and Resort Sports Network and they BOTH went for it. So if you find yourselves... [click the 'continue reading' link below]
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...with on-demand cable or you're in areas where RSN is a featured program (detail forthcoming), check it out and send us your feedback. It will also be available as another episode in a forthcoming podcast, later this week.

Lots more info at www.bestphotosequence.com.

Related videos + posts from the SanDisk job to further whet your palette for $5-$10,000 bucks:

[Now You Know, Sandisk Extreme Pro]
[Photo Gear Mania]
[Chase Jarvis CURRENT: SanDisk Q&A Follow-up]
[Behind The Curtain: Guts of a Commercial Shoot Video]
[Video Report From the Heliworks Barn]
[Video: Packing Quick 'n' Dirty]
[Chase Jarvis RAW: NZ Basecamp]
[UPDATED behind-the-scenes snapshot gallery]


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Sundance, The 140TC, and Nikon Festival Cash-ola

Howdy friends, quick note here...scribbling this one in remote-style from the cold and snowy streets of Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. (Check out my hat and my sweet blue steel.) If you happen to be in the neighborhood (or if you're following a lot of Twitter streams) there's a ton of cool stuff going on. I wanted to share with you a few things in particular:

1. I'll be sitting on a panel as a part of the superdope 140 Twitter Conference called Filmmaking in the Age of Twitter: How Affordable, Innovative Tools are Transforming Hollywood Also on the panel will be Lavar Burton (Star Trek, Roots), Marcin Teodoru (Circle Films), Mark L. Pederson (producer). This panel is at 4pm Sunday (tomorrow). If you are interested in attending, I have 3 seats I can give away. First 3 people to tweet @ me via @chasejarvis with the request will get put on the list. I"ll confirm you with a response, so you'll know who you are. Schedule is here if you're interested. Big ups to my friends at G-Tech for making it possible.

2. If you are at Sundance and don't give a rats arse about hearing me yap on the panel, but instead want to meetup, do a shot, put faces with names, etc, I'd love it. I'm just going to be tweeting my locale pretty regularly over the next few days. And it's a small town. If we cross paths, please introduce yourself. It'll be brief, but I love meeting people from this here virtual world in real life. [fwiw, I wanted to do a Chase Jarvis SOCIAL, but the crazy schedule and general mayhem of Sundance made it impossible. Hence the alternative here.}

3. Lastly, but not least-ly, some huge news. Rainn Wilson, iJustine and yours truly HAVE PICKED OUR $100,000 WINNER for the Nikon Festival. We will be announcing that winner from here at Sundance on Tuesday morning. Stay tuned here and at the Nikon Festival Facebook page and Twitter stream for the announcement.

Hope to cross paths with lots of y'all in person and lots more of you in the innernets over the next couple of days.
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When You Least Expect It, Expect it.

Creative ideas don't gently glide across the artist's desk, darkroom tray, or easel comfortably between the hours of 9 and 5. Occasionally they do, but by and large they usually smash us in the side of the head at 10:56pm when the movie is over, at 12:10am after the argument with your brother or, in my case this morning at 3:56am after awaking from a startling, but amazing, dream.

To be clear, I'm not advocating not sleeping. I'm simply advocating a readiness to respond when those ideas percolate into your consciousness. In my experience--when I'm just living my life, minding my own business, but ready...no, not ready...WILLING to commit to ideas is when they come to me. It could be different for you, of course, but this is when I'm best.

The idea to put some of the first "behind the scenes" videos of photoshoots online came to me in the middle of the night.
The idea for Seattle 100 came to me at 5am after a restless night of sleep.
The aesthetics for Songs for Eating and Drinking presented themselves to me at 2am, after a long night of eating and drinking.
The aesthetic for the campaign I'm about to shoot came on a red-eye flight when I got up to pee.
The idea for uniting my iphone app, book and online sharing site came at 3am.
And so on, ad nauseum.

None of those were ideal times to motivate, but I've learned that creative ideas are wonderful, beautiful, and often rare and fleeting things--wispy as all hell, they are...[click 'continued reading' link below]
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...and so I beg you not to resist their timing. On the contrary, cherish it. Get up. Write it down. Be alone, or call your friend. Grab your notebook for a sketch or your iphone to mutter some words into its microphone. Start to scribble, type, record that video, go for a walk and develop those ideas.

At all costs, be willing to embrace them when they tap you on the shoulder. You'll be thankful you did.
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Respect.

Whether you're in the USA observing the holiday from home or the office, or you're abroad and perhaps not, I recommend that you take 17 minutes and watch this video. Pausing to refresh and reflect on this history plays an important role in our present and our future approach to civil rights worldwide.

Much respect. Have a great day.



RSS readers can catch the video here.
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Chase Jarvis RAW: Innerspace Photo Roundup

I really dig that we're in a new era of photography where like minded shooters enjoy gathering to learn. I prefer to shoot photos rather than give classes or seminars, but I DO like to create these environments that allow photographers to experiment, socialize, and learn together.

That's what this little evening was all about. Our hardworking crew rounded up an InnerSpace indoor skate part, handful of semi-pro skateboarders (mad respect!), a whole truckload of Broncolor lighting gear, and a keg of tasty Pyramid beer--and then we stayed up way too late shooting pictures and talking shop with photographers who had flown in on their own dime from NYC, LA, Toronto, and elsewhere. It was a real treat getting to meet a bunch of new people and rally around self-learning.

We'll keep doing these sorts of things when I can muster a free day or two. These are usually short notice based on my schedule, so following me on Twitter and becoming a fan on Facebook are the best ways to find out the where, when, how. I'm on the road more than I'm home, so if you'd be interested in me pulling together resources for one of these little underground meetups in your home town, let me know. [click continue reading link below]

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