happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Mac photo nerds get to play Picasa (thanks Google!)

Woot!  Google has released Picasa for Mac geeks!

I use Picasa on my work PC as a way to manage/sort/keep my random picture hoarding self sane - as it tracks images and photos all over my hard drive (not just in a specified 'Photos' folder).  Picasa also automatically detects new images on your machine and updates itself immediately, so I can always rely on it to help me find an image that I have accidentally saved in a random file.  This happens a lot.  Ahem.

In a friendly gesture to iPhoto lovers, Picasa maintains your iPhoto library's integrity by asking to create separate copy of iPhoto images before editing, as they realized many users will use both iPhoto and Picasa.  This way I can manipulate and re-arrange images in Picasa (and play around with their collage features, etc.) and not worry about my iPhoto projects being disturbed.

Picasa for Mac is still a Google Labs product (meaning it's still in beta, but really what Google product isn't...), so some nifty features (like geo-tagging) aren't working quite yet and you might encounter some rough spots.  But hey, it's a great step - especially for those that go both ways (photographically speaking that is).

A gray haired old man who should be on Facebook

Originally uploaded by .sereal.

Per my earlier Facebook Houston Chronicle post below, here is a gray haired old man who should be on Facebook.  Visualization at its finest - an old man and his harmonica with dreams of a well-connected, fascinating future Facebook career.

Pin-up love from Austin Freaking TX

I just had to share the most amazing photography studio I discovered from Austin, TX called 666 Photography.

It's been such an inspiration planning for Houston Sketchy this month (can you believe Valentine's Day is almost here?!?) and I am hardly able to take my eyes off their gorgeous handmade costumes and immaculate props.

Just a little photo love for all you retro-vintage lovers out there. See you at Houston Sketchy on February 17th dahlings!!

As if you even needed them: More ways and reasons to love Flickr

I love Flickr with a passion.  It brings me new friends, teaches me so much about photography and serves  as a way to include friends and family in far-off places as part of my daily life.

Mashable had a great post on 11 different ways to view Flickr photos (like NastyPixel's Flickrfling and a tool called Depictr - which lets you browse by typing in your fave song lyrics).

I have poked around LOADS of neat Flickr / online photo tools, some of my faves include:

• Flickrslidr - easiest way to embed Flickr slideshows on your site
• MosaicMaker - a simple way to create pretty mosaics with your photos
• Flickr toys are awesome!!!
• Flickrriver - a pretty way to view others' photos and display your own stream/groups/favorite tags (much prettier than the typical Flickr badge, I think -- I love simple design).  Here's my badge:

You can see about a billion other great Flickr tools here as well.  How do you get your Flickr satisfaction?  Do you friend back everyone who friends you on Flickr? (You can join the Photojojo discussion on that topic here)

Punctum Day - standing still in the quiet moments of unexpected beauty

iStock Photo (a yummy stock imagery site I use pretty regularly) has declared August 19th 'Worldwide Punctum Day' - a day to celebrate both its site contributors and to honor 'the profound reaction evoked by an excellent image' (says Black Star Rising).

While iStock is holding a rather exclusive competition to award $40,000 in prizes to its contributors (a cool idea, although it could've perhaps been leveraged to gain some new contributing talent as well...) I view Punctum Day as a time to step back and let the poignant beauty of the world feed our hungry little eyeballs and souls.

I consider myself lucky, as I experience that sudden shortness of breath and that feeling of warm realization upon discovering something beautifully every single day.  Starting from the minute that I open a particular bedroom door in the morning to the moment I close a particular bedroom door at night.   What has made your heart sing lately?

Crowdsourced art goes mobile -- the TxtMeL8r adventure begins!

1. Take pic don't think, originally uploaded by txtmel8r.

Today we received our first assignment for TxtMeL8r - a camera phone project that taps into our collective mobile devices and creativity.  There will be an actual physical gallery show at the end of the project, but in the meantime you can keep up with the assignment entries on Flickr.

TxtMeL8r is an exhibition co-curated by Houston Center for Photography and Aurora Picture Show, Txt Me L8r explores the potential for distributed creativity through the use of cell phone technology. Combining crowdsourcing with networked communication, Txt Me L8r invites artists and the general public alike to adapt new technologies for spontaneous, geographically-dispersed collaboration.

Let me see your face - the new portrait masters

I greatly enjoyed this article on 'The New Portrait' from the American Photo magazine:

It's always been much easier for me to understand why photographers want to take pictures of people than why people want to have their pictures taken. For most of us, even the famous, it can be profoundly discomfiting to forfeit our power of self-deception, to put ourselves into the hands of a portraitist who has his or her own agenda. Richard Avedon once recalled that Henry Kissinger, a man used to authority as Richard Nixon's secretary of state, pleaded with him to "be kind to me" when he sat for a portrait. A master of realpolitik, Kissinger recognized an imbalance of power when he saw it.

I hate having my photo taken, but yearn for the courage to shoot more photos of people.  Old buildings, rust, graffiti and food I can handle no problem - but there is an element of fearlessness in photographers who can boldly look a subject in the eye to find (and photograph) their true face.  The above double portrait image is by photographer Mark Laita.

Coming soon - 24 hours of Flickr

Are you in?  Join the 24 hours of Flickr group here and get ready to snap your cereal, socks, co-workers and bedtime story book on May 5th.

Sometimes photo editing ain't no Picnik

Now that I'm back on the Mac at home (and too lazy to re-install Photoshop for the time being), I've been looking for something to satisfy my Picasa cravings for quick and easy photo edits.

I think I've found it - a free (still in beta, but what isn't?) app called Picnik.  It plays extremely friendly with Flickr, letting you upload directly to your account instead of doing the Picasa 2-step (export and uploading separately) and lets you search Flickr and Yahoo! images using interestingness and Creative Commons license info as well.

They are still working on some of their Creative Tools, but so far they have the basics and a cool special feature - vignetting!   Another super bonus - unlimited edits, even if you've worked on a photo months ago you can still go back and undo,undo,undo.  Glorious.

It's super-fast, free and easy.  I am very happy right now.

Vista shows Flickr some love

After approximately a year of living without my laptop (it was too painful for me to shell out hundreds of dollars to have it repaired - versus buying a new one), I finally gave in and shelled out the cash to send the beloved iBook to the Apple Hospital.

Working computers are good.  But having my Apple back in my life doesn't mean that I'm not intrigued by the Vista world.  Especially so after reading about Vista including Flickr users' photos as desktop wallpaper options.

Microsoft designers searched for over a year to find the images and even sent their favorite photographers on photo shoots.  Check out Hamad Darwish, a Flickr-er who spent 12 days shooting over 6000 RAW images for Microsoft after their discovered his photo sets.  Of those 6000 images, he selected 15 to send to Microsoft, of which Microsoft chose 5.  Talk about a cool photo opp, all thanks to the glowing power of Flickr.