Our Mission: Donate 10% of all photo proceeds to charitable organizations.




Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Making of "Simply Beautiful Photographs" - National Geographic book by Annie Griffiths


Photos That Give's first field trip was to National Geographic in D.C. last week to attend a talk by Annie Griffith's, world famous nat geo photographer and author of nat geo's new book: Simply Beautiful Photographs.

The talk was inspiring and educational - Annie talked about what makes a photograph great: light, composition, and moment, just to name a few.

Watch this video for a condensed version of the talk, and to see some of the photographs included in the book.

Stay tuned for details on our next field trip!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Nat Geo Event: 10/26: Masters of Photography


National Geographic will be putting on a Masters of Photography event, starting next Tuesday, 10/26 and running until 12/08.

Here are the details on the first event of the 3-part series "Capturing Beauty"

October 26, 2010
Time 7:30 p.m.
Price NG Member: $16 (series: $42); General Public: $18 (series $48)
Address:
1600 M Street, NW
Washington, D.C. (Farragut North/West Stops on the Red Line).

I've been going to National Geographic events at their Auditorium for years now. They always have photographs on display, and their events are always unique, educational, adventure-filed, and inspiring.

Here's a brief description of the 10/26 event:
For the new book National Geographic Simply Beautiful Photographs, veteran photographer Annie Griffiths plumbed the Society’s Image Collection to select the finest photographs from its legendary archive. The result? A spellbinding visual journey…from stunning landscapes and magnificent wildlife…to fascinating cultures and rarely visited destinations. Spend an evening with Griffiths as she recounts the stories behind the images, and explains the critical qualities necessary to create beauty in a photograph.

If you'd like to join me next Tuesday, please send an email to: photosthatgive@gmail.com.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

kitty nose.



Royal posed for me before I headed to work this morning.

I hear cats are typically elusive and sneaky, and play hard to get. Not Royal. He sat and glared directly into my lens.

This was the best shot of the shoot. I like it because the focal point is his pink nose.

Photography Contest

We thought you may like to know about National Geographic's upcoming Photography Contest.

Here's the Scoop:
Deadline: November 30, 2010, 9:00:00 a.m. US Eastern Time
Entry Fee: $15 per entry.
Categories: People, Places, and Nature (no limit on # of entries per person).
Format: Digital
Date: Photos must have been taken within two years of submission date.

PTG wants to know what photos you think we should enter. Let us know by commenting on this post. Thanks!

Life in Color: Green, Green Photos -- National Geographic

Life in Color: Green, Green Photos -- National Geographic

Monday, October 18, 2010

Photos That Give Mascot: Royal


Last month, we blogged about our other Mascot, Donovan. We've got some pretty cute mascots, don't you think?

This was taken with my Droid Incredible as royal started to fall asleep in his favorite spot: 10 feet up, on top of our kitchen cabinets.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Help PTG Grow: Give us Feedback!

As an organization we are young, and getting press like we did today on D.C. Daily Candy really helps us grow.

We learn more about how to run our organization, including how to make it easier for visitors to navigate the PTG website, what style/type of photograph our visitors prefer, etc. and our motivation is to improve PTG in order to make substantial donations to charitable organizations.

We are so thankful for the support our visitors have given PTG, not only through photo sales, but through feedback as well. We'd love to hear from you.

Send us a message by clicking on the Photos That Give "contact us" link.

Thanks for Giving Back!

Photos That Give on D.C. Daily Candy!

Photos That Give is featured on today's "Here's The Plan" - a D.C. Daily Candy feature that comes out on Sundays with the scoop on area events and "diversions."

We are really excited about showing up on Daily Candy's radar. As a result of today's feature, Photos That Give is getting a tremendous amount of attention (photo sales and website visits, just to name a couple).

Below is the D.C. Daily Candy Blurb and the picture they chose to represent us.

HELP
Photos That Give
What:
Purchase prints ($20-$85) by D.C.-based photographers Lauren Udwari and Josh Marans from the new online gallery, which donates 10 percent of all proceeds to charity.
Why: Color and black-and-white street scenes, desert landscapes, and farmers market close-ups benefit Vets Without Borders, Stop Hunger Now, Habitat for Humanity, and others.
When: There’s a blank space on your wall.
Where: Online at photosthatgive.com.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

ghosting effect


I recently came across PhotoNotes.org, which claims to be the most comprehensive photographic glossary online.

Many of Photos That Give's followers, fans, and supporters are burgeoning photographers themselves, and so I thought I'd share this dictionary.

I'd always heard about a "ghosting effect" as it pertains to photography, and so I looked it up on PhotoNotes.

Ghost:

1. Glowing patches of light caused by lens flare.

2. Blurry ghost trails caused by camera motion or subject motion during the exposure.

The picture above comes from "Parkour in NYC Photos: How to Get the Shot" on National Geographic Adventure.

It's a good example of ghosting effect. Read the article to find out how the photographer created this effect.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Guilty as Charged


Our photo-hosting provider, Smugmug, has a pretty popular forum called Dgrin (or Digital Grin - Smugmug's logo is a grin...) in which photographers can get advice about gear, techniques, and all other things photography. Every now and then they host a "Mini Challenge" in which a forum user chooses a photo theme for a contest, and everyone can enter 3 photos pertaining to that theme. The winner gets to choose the theme for the next contest, judges the winners, and so on.

Being relatively new to the forum, I came across my first challenge about a month ago with the topic "Animal Attitude" which judged the photo's ability to show an animal's attitude, but also had to have solid photographic elements such as composition, lighting, etc. On a whim I scrambled through the PTG animal photos and made 3 selections. I thought at the least it would get us some exposure.

The contest ended on the last day of September, but I forgot to check the results...until today. And I was shocked to see that "Guilty as Charged" nabbed 2nd place out of hundreds of submissions! What does this mean for us? Well, not much. But it's great to get recognized and receive positive feedback about your photos. Here is what the judge said of the photo:

SECOND PLACE...
photosthatgive - Guilty as Charged
An attitude of guilt or shyness is on this dog's face and the composition of cropping, sepia tone, the moody lighting and depth of field is great! Bringing into focus the eyes which scream the theme! I personally would have cloned out the shiney tag on the dog's collar but no big deal.

Little does he know we don't use Photoshop and I wouldn't know the first thing about cloning out a dog collar. All the more reason to be proud of ourselves - we're beating out the Photoshoppers with our raw photos! (P.S. I took this photo indoors, handheld, in poor lighting when I was just learning how to use my first dSLR.)

I'll bask in this one for about 5 more minutes, then I have to go to work.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

New York Mixed Martial Arts Initiative


My sister (Polly) and brother-in-law (Justin) recently started the New York Mixed Martial Arts Initiative (www.newyorkmma.com) which aims to create and continue after school MMA and self-defense programs for inner city high school students throughout New York and across the country. These programs serve as gang and violence alternatives for underprivileged youth while promoting self-disciple, confidence, fitness, and emotion well-being. Justin is also known in the sporting world as the Fight Lawyer, writing regularly on his blog which covers the legal aspects of Mixed Martial Arts, Boxing, and other contact sports.

Being the supportive brother that I am, I enlisted Lauren and myself to take photos of one such after school program in action on a recent visit up to NYC. These photos will be used at a fundraiser for the organization later this month (it's taking place in NYC - contact us if you'd like more information about attending). The photo shoot posed a challenge for us as we're not typically "event" photographers - we don't have much experience photographing people - especially quick, young people kicking, punching, and doing flips at full speed (in less than stellar lighting conditions). It was definitely a learning experience for us on many levels.

On our cab ride from 34th street to 105th, the cab driver tried endlessly to understand why we wanted to go to Spanish Harlem, seemingly trying to convince us not to go. The area had character - we met up with the director of the program, David Grodky, and I grabbed a corned beef sandwich, as good as any in New York City. Park East was about what we'd expected from an inner-city high school.

This was a particularly exciting day for the program participants as they were not only going to be photographed by real photographers, but they were also receiving MMA gear donated to the program by Everlast. At the start, the kids were about as uncertain about the situation as we were. Should they look at us? Should they pretend we aren't there? Should we tell them to pose a certain way? Should we only shoot naturally? But all that uncertainty disappeared when the kids started ripping into their new Everlast gear, each choosing a pair of MMA shorts, a moisture-wicking shirt, and a mold-able mouth guard. They quickly changed into their new gear and their faces lit up - they were striking fighting stances, flexing their muscles, giving each other five, laughing it up - imagine them, these kids who rarely have a good thing happen to them, now the centers of attention: getting new clothing, having their pictures taken - they were in heaven.

The rest of the shoot went smoothly as we watched the students in action, eager to show us their best moves. We saw take-downs, sparring with pads, and instruction on new techniques from their instructor/history teacher, Mr. Grodky. Lauren and I were excited to see such talented, motivated kids, clearly proud of the skills they've learned. We hope the pictures capture the camaraderie and sportsmanship exhibit by all the participants - they truly are learning more than just MMA techniques.

I wish we could share some of the photos now, but we're working on having the parents sign photo releases since almost all of the students are minors. We're looking forward to visiting the program again next time we're in New York, and hopefully by this time next year similar programs will be more widespread throughout the city.