Here are the last two shots from the Photo Booth contest. I’ve posted quite a few shots and I also have some that the submitter wanted eligible but didn’t want them to be posted to the site. (I can understand this.)

The contest is officially over now. I’m going to show the photos to my wife and have her pick a winner then I’ll contact that person. Thanks to everyone for playing!!!

I read an interesting article on Forbes.com titled “How To Get People To Trust You.” Considering it was from Forbes, you can imagine that it is more specifically talking about getting bosses, co-workers, and clients to trust you. There were a lot of good tips. But how does this relate to photography?

I’m always amazed at how some people can approach strangers and ask to take their pictures. It is especially hard when trying to take pictures of kids. So many parents are understandably apprehensive. It gets even harder when you intend to publish the pictures and need them to sign something.

As I was reading thru the tips on Forbes, there was one paragraph that seemed to be applicable to this.

Feinstein encourages her clients to bare their forearms and show their palms. Flashing some skin indicates openness and availability. Eye contact is also key. If you’re looking away, she says, you seem shifty.

Read More: How To Get People To Trust You

Do you have any tips to offer?

The other day I was talking with my sister who just purchased her first D-SLR. I explained to her that I always have my camera to take “Large and Fine” jpeg photos. With digital photography, it doesn’t make sense to have it any other way. Memory is fairly cheap and hard drives are big enough to hold thousands and thousands of picture. And, you never know when you are going to get the shot of the century. What if you were taking photos in NYC on September 11th and you had it on “Small” to save room on your card?

I bring this up because I recently had the joy of visiting Picture-History.com. This site offers an incredibly collection of old photos. I really loved going thru teh Themed Collections. It has collections like The Abraham Lincoln Assassination and a beautiful collection of Castles.

As I go thru the photos I wonder if the photographer’s knew we’d be enjoying thier photos so many years later. So many of these photos are powerful and emotional.

Photojojo came up with another winner today. The give some step by step instructions to put photos on that old can of Lima beans that has been sitting in your pantry. Their example are great.

If you’re looking for a cool way to fill up the shelves on your entertainment center, this could look real neat.

Read More: Transform a Tin Can into a Simple Photo Frame in 15 Minutes

Apple released the newest version of Aperture today. It is now version 1.5. Among the noteworthy new features are more options for storeage of your photos and better integration with iLife, iWork, etc. It also has third party plugin support (Flickr) and it can run on all Macs now.

Oh yeah, this is a free upgrade to current users. If you’re buying for the first time, the price is still $299.

Read More: What’s New In Aperture 1.5?

The photos for the iPod Shuffle Giveaway are still coming in. Here are a few of the recent good ones.

A couple days ago I offered a Photoshop action to make the color in your photos pop, I received a few emails asking how to load these actions. Since I plan to release more actions in the future, I thought it would be a good idea to get up a quick tutorial. It’s really a simple process.

Just find the “Actions” palette and look for the little circle with the arrow in it. Click that button and you’ll get a drop down menu. From there find “Load Actions” It will prompt you asking where the action is located. Just find it and presto.

Photonotes.org has a really comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions for Canon EOS Beginners. If you are just buying your first D-SLR camera from Canon, or you are thinking of buying one, you will find a ton of information there.

This morning I was reading thru Part 3 that has to do with lenses. I got to one part that I thought would be useful to repost here. I’ve heard a lot of beginning photographers ask the question, “What are these numbers on my lens?”. Here is his answer:

Lenses have bits of text printed on the barrel or around the front element which convey a lot of important information about their properties. Be really careful when shopping for lenses. Two lenses may have very similar-looking names, but may actually be completely different one from the other.

Here are two examples. Note that all the technical terms used here are described later on in this FAQ.

CANON LENS EF 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6. Ø58mm.

EF means that the lens is of the Canon EF type. EF lenses fit Canon EOS cameras and virtually no others.

28-80mm refers to the focal length of the lens. In this case there are two values since the lens is a zoom lens which can go from 28mm at its widest to 80mm at its longest. These numeric values in millimetres essentially indicate the coverage area of the lens.

1:3.5-5.6 refers to the widest aperture of which the lens is capable. The 1: is there since f/stops are, technically speaking, ratios. Since the lens is a zoom there are two aperture values – f/3.5 and f/5.6. This particular lens is an inexpensive amateur lens which can be opened up to f/3.5 at the widest end (28mm) but only f/5.6 at the longest end (80mm). This means it’s a fairly slow lens – it can’t let in much light, even its aperture diaphragm is when fully open.

Note that the autofocus motor type is not indicated, which means that the lens uses either an AFD (arc-form drive) or micromotor drive. Both types are slow and noisy compared to ultrasonic (USM) motors.

Ø58mm refers to the filter ring diameter. In other words, screw-on filters 58mm in diameter will fit this lens.

You can read more at Part III: Lenses.

One of my favorite Flickr groups is the Technique Group. There are so many talented people there that offer up their tips.

One of the great discussions is one called “Tutorial: Make Your Colors Pop.” The flickr user macaddict offers a great tutorial on bringing out the colors of your photo. It basically consists of changing the mode to “Lab Color”, making some changes for the a, b, and Lightness channels, then switching the mode back to RGB. It sounds simple, but there are some great results. To see the tutorial and see some examples, head to the Flickr Discussion.

After playing with it for a while, I finally determined just the right settings for my photos. I then created a Photoshop Action for me to use in the future. Just in case some of you would like to give it a try, I’ll make it available for you too. Just download it and install the action from your Actions pallette in Photoshop. You can download it here.

Here is one example. First is original, second is “popped”.