Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

These links are to good advice around creating email policies for your organisation.

• Email Policy
• Internet and email policy

Level Up – an interesting website for 8-12 year old girls around purity and other teen girl issues – relevant for me with a 13yr old and 11 yr old daughter

Photography

Focus stacking tutorial – something to learn from

ZFlick – a cool lightweight app on the Adobe Air Platform for searching Flickr – very cool visual effects.

Zior Photo – some pretty cool photography

What stormtroopers do on their day off

11 tips to succeed with a Photo365 Project. See my 365 days of Bokeh photos on flickr

And some of my latest pics suitable for use as desktop backgrounds – If you want to download them just click on them to get the full size file. then right click to download to your computer.

We have had so much rain lately that everything is green – and i really liking it. Green is a colour with so many shades – and the constant source of arguments for my wife and I as to whether something is blue or green!

I have taken some really nice photos using the green colour in the background to offset the subject. I would love to have feedback on these pictures – which do you like, or not like and why?

Click read more to see the photos.

High Dynamic Resolution Photos are very cool right now – lots of people are doing them. So I looked up how to do them. I haven’t had the time to do any yet – but I will definitely shoot some in our upcoming strobist shoot later in January. I guess that means I will need to practice first too! In the meantime here are some tutorials and guides to the amazing world of HDR photos.

Note the photo below is not mine, it is from Smashing Magazine.

Links:

• Cambridge in Colour Tutorial
• Lifehacker review which led me to:
• Leviathors Definitive Guide to Realistic High Dynamic Range Images
• Abducted by Design tutorial
• DesignORA – best HDR Pics of 2009
• Nill Photoalbum Photoshop tutorial
• Smashing Magazine – 35 great HDR photos
• Photocritic ultimate guide to HDR photography

I have been having a lot of fun playing with the photography, learning new techniques and trying new things. I have a practice of finding one or two things every couple of years to learn about and become an “expert” in. Doing so requires lots of reading, benchmarking and networking with others in the same space and preparing to put in some hard yards. I love this initial phase of the learning process. As I start reading different blogs and researching different things there are so many ways you can go. I haven't decided what to focus on yet, for now I am reviewing lots and lots of things.

Here’s a sample of the things I have seen in the last few weeks I have bookmarked or kept open in my browser – time to make space for some new ones now.