Recently on FreeMacBlog, I wrote about a friend of mine who had his house broken into. The theif took both his Macs, his backup drives and other electronics. (Thank goodness they didn’t find his new Canon D30.)

The post is called How To Prepare For A Stolen Mac. If you take the time to read the post, you’ll read that he lost all of his digital photos. He had about 30,000. He backed them up to his external drive, but that was stolen too.

My friend’s one photography saving grace was that he would often share his images with family and friends. He enjoys sharing his work (and we enjoy seeing them.) Because of this, he has been able to email friends and family, asking them to send back any pictures that he may have sent them in the past. Obviously he won’t be able to retreive all of his images this way, but he will be able to save some.

I hope you take the time to share your photos. If you take family shots, be sure to send them out to your family. Most of my best shots are on my Flickr.com account. It feels good know that if my machine was ever stolen or ruined, I’d always be able to pull down my best shots from my account. The inexpensive amount I spend yearly on Flickr is a very cheap way to back up your favorite images…and it lets others enjoy your work.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You are going to take a photo of your family so everyone lines up facing the sun and you snap the shot. Everyone has shadows under their eyes and mom hates the way tht her wrinkles look. Is that about right?

When people start taking portraits, a common mistake is to assume that you don’t need the flash while taking photos on a sunny day. This is false. In fact, famed photographer Derrick Story offers, “that the one killer tip that will inprove your pictures more than any other is to turn on your flash for outdoor portrais.”

The reason is simple. Regular outdoor light is hard to control. If is it shining across the face, the texture and bumps will show. If it is straight on the subject, the shoadows will be strong.

So, what to do? Mr Story suggests that you “finda comfortable spot for (the subject) to stand in the open shade…with a complimentary background.” Next, you’ll want to turn on your flash. Now, as you take the shot, the subject will be lit with the flash. This light will come from their front so the light smooths over texture and blemishes. However, your camera will still recognize the bright background. This is called “Fill Flash.” It “fills in” the shadows and angles.

There are some things to consider:

• The flash will drain your battery faster. Be sure to have a backup.
• Stay close to your subject. Most flash only travels about eight feet. External flashes will travel further.
• Changing your ISO to 200 will let give you a little more room to play with the flash.

Below is a picture I took at my sister’s wedding. It was in Las Vegas in the middle of the Summer so it was hot, bright, and everyone was sweaty. Using the fill flash really brought out the vibrant colors of the flowers and softened the shadows from the strong sun.

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.