Show Notes for Digital Photography Life #11: How to Look Good in Pictures with Steve Simon

Photographer and instructor extraordinaire, Steve Simon, joins us with his tips on how to make your subjects look better in your portraits.

Steve is my new best podcast friend - a terrific guy, generous with his information and inspiring in his art. He's done so much great work, from chronicling both sides of the political spectrum here in the States, as in his book The Republicans, to using his talents to call attention to the tragedy of AIDS in Africa. A good photographer who's also a good person - you gotta love him.

Steve's co-hosted a number of episodes of Nikon's Look Good In Pictures, where he's worked alongside Carson Kressley, of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame. Michael and I have talked about Nikon's Look Good in Pictures Before - it's a fantastic free resource that will improve your photography in minutes. You should definitely check it out.

Steve also participates in  podcasting juggernaut This Week in Photography.

Prior to Steve's coming on, Michael and I talk about the real world performance of Apple's new facial-recognition features in iPhoto and the four full-frame DSLR's currently available for under three large.

What makes an online photo sharing service great? How about beautiful page layouts, no ads, customizable pages, fast and secure uploading, bulletproof backup and the ability to sell your photos at prices you set?

SmugMug is our favorite site for sharing and selling your photos. SmugMug has two fantastic offers just for our listeners:

• 50% off your SmugMug service at any level (enter code "Flickr" at checkout). This is a fantastic discount and you should take advantage of it in time to share your holiday photos!
• A free camera strap to any listener of Digital Photography Life: This one is just crazy. A high-quality camera strap that replaces the neck-slicing piece of canvas that your camera's manufacturer condescended to include with your DSLR. Get your freebie here.

Want more Digital Photography Life goodness? Check us out on the internets here:

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Thanks for listening and please let us know what you thought.

Scott

Comments

[Cooper Strange]

I received my free SmugMug strap and am coming to like it more and more. If my lens is a little heavy, I actually would develop headaches as a long day of shooting went on, but so far, the SmugMug strap's flexibility has kept that problem away.

The only issue I had with it is that the ends of the strap are a bit thin, which would not matter, except that it allowed the ends to keep slipping loose and flapping around instead of staying tight against the strap. I was able to triple fold the very end and force the plastic loops over it to make it stay still. It has not come undone in several days now. Silly, but I am not looking for frills, but a camera strap.

Thanks so much for those straps SmugMug and DPL. It came at the perfect time for me.

[Thorge]

Just heard the new episode and wanted to say: I liked it a lot!
The interview with Steve Simon was great fun.
I watched the pictures on his webside and - this guy rocks!
Would be great if you could have him giving feedback on the pics in the contest.

Further I'd like to suggest another photographer for an interview: Steve McCurry (www.stevemccurry.com). In my eyes he is the ultimate travel photographer and check his portrait series ... incredible! We just had the first Steve McCurry retrospective in Germany which was gorgeous! He might be too popular to get him on the show (he received so many awards ...) but I think it's worth trying ...

Scott, Michael I love your podcast. I had some bad luck recently, but your guys made my day :-)

Kind regards from Germany

Thorge

[Bii]

Gee Scott, can't believe you argued for 20 minutes about the D700 and 5Dmk2 dpreview scores on their features. Who cares? both cameras are awesome! you sound like one of those Nikon fanboys who talk more than they shoot.

[Bii]

*Nikon and Canon fanboys

[Tim]

I'm with Bii. Who cares about who got the better score. Who cares about video. It is a still camera, not a video camera. Stop whining just because you want you precious Canon to have the better score. Get a life.

And if I hear about those crappy Mac machines one more time I'm going to go postal. Can we please stick to photography.

[Jeff]

Hi guys!
I just found you again and have been catching up on all of the shows. They make my 40 mile commute a little less boring.
I love the show, but do have one small complaint. In the opening of the show your audio is great, but when you switch to the actual show & interview, the audio is extremely low.
Keep up the great work & thanks for a great show!
Jeff

[Frank A]

Whoever one the Lensbaby?

[Pam]

Ya who won that Lensbaby? and the photoshop CS4 or better yet where do we go to dicover the winners. Sometimes I am a little late uploading your show.

[Kip]

I always listen to the show and I think what you guys do is great. It's unfortunate that my first post will be a negative one. The interview with Steve Simon seemed to drag on too long without much content covered. I was hoping for some more insight and tips about how he does things but was sadly left wanting. I can usually tell how the show is by looking at your show notes/recap--the more detailed the notes the better the show. This week's notes are short. :-(

On a good note, I really enjoyed the interview with Laurel last week. :-)

There, a negative comment followed by a positive comment.