more photographer inspiration

Dave Hill recently updated his site. He has a distinctive high-contrast, almost cartoonish style. While such images are likely post-processed in the computer, I believe that they also requires control over lighting to achieve.

Joey Lawrence (not from TV) does some pretty amazing work, especially considering his age: 17.

Todd Hido has a clean website. His landscapes have a dark yet dreamy quality about them.

James Balog is a nature photographer. Check out his work on glaciers. There's an article on the Nikon Pro Challenge that shows some of the behind-the-scenes setup. [via strobist.com]

lightroom

My copy of Lightroom Beta 4 finally expired this week, and I've been looking for a replacement. I want a RAW processor that also organizes my data somewhat (with IPTC metadata).

I tried Bibble, and it's the best RAW processor I've used: fast, noise reduction via Noise Ninja, and pretty good automatic results. However, the interface is a little odd (no undo!) and I don't think there's way to use metadata templates.

Since I use a Mac, there's a lot of people wondering how well Lightroom 1.0 compares with Aperture 1.5 . Generally, it seems that Aperture has better organization (hierarchical keywords) while Lightroom has more powerful editing (selective editing).

I'm currently considering Lightroom 1.0 ($199), Aperture 1.5 ($299), and Photoshop CS2 ($299 upgrade).

Here are a few links:
O'Reilly on Aperture
O'Reilly on Lightroom
nice writeup on Lightroom with comparisons to Aperture (2/07 issue)