Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned veteran these tools, tutorials, lists and other resources are great sites for any web designer. Organized into helpful categories (design inspiration, CSS resources, web design guides, color tools, free fonts and more) this collection not only has useful resources but also categorized links to other lists with 100s more. If you’re not a designer but still need to create sites you still might be best off spending a few bucks on a web page creation tool with a simple GUI than hiring a designer but can still use the first section below and these great wallpapers to get design inspiration!

 

With the new free online version of Photoshop in play now is as good a time as any to brush up on your Photoshop skills and learn some new Photoshopping tricks. Photoshop Express will work for all kinds of computers and browsers so no more excuses not to get started right away!

SmashingMagazine just came out with a great Top 60 List of Photoshop Video Tutorials that are all over the map. Some of them are aimed at teaching you a particular trick or tool and others illustrate the general processes for accomplishing specific goals in Photoshop. Helpful thumbnails/screenshots are provided next to the links.

These 33 Body Enhancement Photoshop Tutorials are a great way to get started on editing human forms. They range from minute details associated with particular body parts and organized by type (eyes, hair, teeth, etc…) to general approaches to improving features on people using Photoshop.

Most of us never consider that a customs official could confiscate our laptops as we travel across borders, copy information from it and return it to us hours (or days or weeks) later - but it happens. C|net has created a handy guide for frequent travelers who are concerned about this issue and wish to protect their personal or professional data from prying eyes.

OK, so we’ve all probably considered what it would be like to be one of those poor saps who falls victim to online con artists - but how many of us have thought about what it would be like to think like one of these con artists? This ‘guide’ takes you on a brief and somewhat disturbing tour of how to approach cons and respond as a con artist would on the internet. Strange but interesting.

In most cases people would like to think they would at least know if they had been hacked even if they were unable to prevent it in the first place. However, many people remain completely oblivious to the fact that things as private and important as their email have become compromised. MakeUseOf has created a guide to making digital ‘tripwires’ so you’ll know if you have been hacked.

Before jumping into more Photoshop tutorials it is always inspiring to see some of the possibilities out there. This collection of animal/fruit hybrids is a great set of examples showing the power and potential of Photoshop.

Sometimes you really want to pop in a reflection into a body of water that simply refused to cooperate while you were taking a photograph or otherwise Photoshopping a scene. It is surprisingly easy to do this in a convincing way. As with many Photoshopping processes you just can’t become too obsessed with any single step or appearance along the way - in the end it will look great!

This next tutorial is a bit more involved and has more artistic than strictly practical applications. Still, if you are interested in creating any kind of space-themed logo, website or other graphic design this kind of thing can really come in handy for creating original backgrounds. Here is the tutorial on how to create great space explosions virtually from scratch.

 

If you have to stare at something for 8 or more hours a day, why not make it something interesting? Sure there are tons of places to find wallpaper on the web … but a lot of them are hard to navigate and highly disorganized. Divided into five helpful categories, with introductory descriptions and sample screenshots, here are over twenty of the best collections, communities and other resources on the web for finding excellent desktop wallpaper.

The ‘You Suck at Photoshop’ Video Series by Donnie Hoyle

 

This is more than just an absurd design tutorial video series - it is an epic saga any design geek can appreciate. In his latest example he speaks in a fully deadpan voice as Donnie describes how you can impress your new girlfriend by Photoshopping a go-kart door into your house to show how much your first date meant. Sound stupid? Well, so did Napolean Dynamite but that was a smash hit on the big screen. Who knew? Well, just watch and see above … then if you’re as hooked as you should be watch the rest of the series below.

 

SmashingMagazine recently featured an article on award-winning print designs and reopened the age-old discussion of print versus web design. Of course, any designer knows that design is design whatever the format but transitioning between these two seemingly similar media is not as simple as it would seem.

Both print and web design are of course concerned with readability, hierarchy of information and other essential elements common to most kinds of design (even beyond print and web). SmashingMagazine also adds that grid-based design and a liberal use of white space are parallel trends in both contemporary print and web design.

There, however, most of the similarities end. Print and web design differ in terms of navigation, fixed versus fluid layouts, response time, resolution, canvas size, multimedia, interactivity and many other ways. The essential differences can be summarized as follows:

• Print design is based on letting the eyes walk over the information, selectively looking at information objects and using spatial juxtaposition to make page elements enhance and explain each other.
• Web design functions by letting the hands move the information (by scrolling or clicking); information relationships are expressed temporally as part of an interaction and user movement.

Of course the differences don’t end there and also extend to issues of resolution, applicable image file types, fonts and so on - with the computer reading experience being highly varied as compared to the exceedingly controlled experience of reading a fixed-format, equally sized and homogenized printed product. Does this mean web design is more difficult to control? Perhaps, but viewed the other way around it takes the focus off of the ‘finished product’ aspect of print design and provides more freedom and positive variability in a well-wrought, flexible and adaptable web design.

TAKEN FROM reencoded.com/

The Scottish Highlands are one of the most sparsely populated regions in Europe and are popularly described as the most scenic. The winding roads guide travelers and residents alike through purple-speckled mountain ranges, tall forests, rolling hills and along lake sides.

Like Ireland, the Highlands are lush with green grasses, but also see a number of colorful shrubs. Most commonly purple, heather — a type of perennial shrub — sweeps the area, from mountain tops to roadsides, also appearing in a range from white to pink, and sometimes even red, contrasting with the surrounding green meadows and forests. Although they may brown, the heathers’ flowers don’t necessarily fall. Other shrubs that sweep the Scottish Highlands range from grey to brown and green to yellow, but when the rain comes, the hills are alive with a vivid green.

But it’s not just the plant life that has colour. Carved from thick ice age glaciers, the mountains stand tall, pouring their tumbled grey and brown rocks into the almost purely blue lochs, some of which can even have white sand. The sparse population means that light pollution is minimal, allowing the mountain-crowded sky to feel expansive and blue.

For a land so beauteous, it shouldn’t arrive as a surprise that the mountain top views are breath-taking. Being a land so different from even its lowland counterpart, the Highlands are packed with so many unique views and colour blends.

Color Inspiration from the Scottish Highlands

TAKEN FROM www.colourlovers.com

If you ever thought about visiting something other than your usual summer destination, do avoid the following beaches. These places in India are not what would consider a vacation spot. And, among all the residue and trash, people fish there.

TAKEN FROM www.wackyarchives.com

Digital Cameras present photographers with an ever increasing array of Automatic and Semi Automatic shooting modes. Most of these center around different ways of exposing your shots - however many cameras also give options for different focusing modes (auto, continuous focusing for moving subjects and manual).

It’s no wonder then that many photographers never make use of their camera and lens’ ability to focus manually. In fact this week I spoke with one DSLR owner recently who hadn’t even noticed the manual/auto focus switch on the side of his lens.

Image by dsevilla

When is Manual Focus Better than Auto Focus?

Let me start by saying there is no right or wrong time to use either manual or auto focusing - both can produce great results in almost all circumstances - however there are a few times when you might find it easier to switch to manual focusing:

1. Macro Work

When doing macro photography I almost exclusively switch to manual focusing.

The narrow depth of field in these shots mean that you need to be incredibly precise with focusing and being just a smidgeon out or having your camera choose to focus on the wrong part of your subject can completely ruin a shot.

To use it you’ll also probably want to use a tripod to eliminate any movement of the camera which can make focusing either in manual or auto mode frustrating.

Manual focusing puts the control completely in your hands when shooting in this very precise setting.

Image by maruchan313

2. Low Light

Shooting in dimly lit environments can be difficult for some cameras and lenses when it comes to focusing.

You’ll know when your camera is struggling in Auto mode when every time you go to take a shot the lens will whirl from one end of it’s focusing options to the other and back again before deciding on where to focus.

This can really lengthen your shooting process and make taking quick candid shots quite frustrating.

Switch to manual mode and you can quickly find your focusing point and get the shot you’re after.

Image by Jim Skea

3. Portraits

When shooting portraits focus needs to be precise.

The majority of your shots of people will need to have their eyes in perfect focus (although in the example to the left it’s the lips) and so switching to manual focus will give you complete control to enable this to save you from having to line up the focusing points on your camera on the eyes, press halfway down and then frame your shot.

Manual focusing in portrait work helps to ensure the viewer of the image is drawn to the part of the face that you want them to notice.

Image by Djof

4. Shooting Through Glass/Wire Fences

If you’ve ever shot through anything like a window or a mess/wire fence you’ll know how cameras will often get confused on where to focus your shot.

Whether it’s shooting out of a plane window, taking a shot of an image at a museum or photographing animals through fences at the zoo - you might find your camera is confused.

Manual focusing will avoid this completely and allow you to get things just right - focusing upon the subject behind that glass or fence. If you do this in conjunction with a large aperture (which decreases depth of field) and get in close to the fence or glass you might well eliminate it completely from being noticeable in your shot.

Image by Gregory Lee

5. Action Photography

Shooting fast moving subjects (like racing cars, planes, bikes, running animals etc) can be a frustrating experience when shooting with auto focus.

Even the continuous focusing modes can get left behind or confusing if you’re not panning with your subject smoothly.

One way to overcome this is to switch to manual focusing and pre focus on a point that the subject will move through - and shooting at that point. You need to get your timing just right - but you’ll find that it’ll often give better results than relying upon auto focus modes (particularly if you shoot in continuous shooting/burst mode).

Image by fensterbme

Homework

Shooting in manual focus mode is a skill that you need to learn and practice. While you will have more time to get it right when shooting still objects - it can become more difficult when shooting moving subjects - so practice.

This week set aside an hour or two with your camera to shoot only in manual focus mode. Practice on a variety of subjects including some moving ones. While your practice session might not produce great results the skill that you learn will be useful to have.

taken from digital-photography-school.com

Photography: mab2413

Are you struggling for new ideas? Do your creative batteries feel as flat and lifeless as a skunk in the fast lane?

Here are 60 ways to breathe new life into your love of photography and re-energize your inspiration.

1. Play with Photoshop
So much of photography these days happens after the shutter release has been pressed. There’s probably a ton of things that you don’t know how to do in Photoshop. Learn something new and see what that does for your photography potential.

2. Read the Manual
It’s not just Photoshop that can do all sorts of things that you don’t know about. Your camera probably has more settings and functions than you know… or know what to do with. You might find a lot of new ideas in the middle of your camera manual.

3. Watch a Movie
Manuals are all well and good, but movies have cinematographers too. There’s not much you can’t learn about landscape photography by sitting back and watching an old Sergio Leone film.

4. Read a Newspaper
Or you can be a little more intellectual and read a newspaper. The Sunday magazines have the best photos but the work by the staff photographers can be great models for creating striking images for amateurs as well as for photojournalists.

5. Visit a Flea Market
Strange objects mean strange shapes, odd shadows and plenty of potential for unique compositions. And you don’t even have to buy anything.

6. Shop at a Farmer’s Market
You never know what you might find at a flea market. At a farmer’s market, you know you can find colors, spheres, people and displays. And dinner too.

7. Check out Some Wedding Photojournalism
It might not be the sort of thing that your clients expect, but the images on display at the Wedding Photojournalist Association’s website might get you thinking about brides and grooms in a whole new way. Instead of the posing and the tripod, you’ll get to blend into the crowd and document the scene. It’s a whole new skill and it could give your wedding photography a whole new lease of life.

8. Hit the Water
You don’t have to be a scuba diver to shoot underwater images. You just need waterproof housing and access to the sea, a swimming pool or even a pond. And once you’re wet, don’t forget to look up as well as down. Some of the most inspiring images can be taken at the point where the light hits the surface of the water.

9. Hit the Streets
There’s a good reason that street photography is so popular: there are so many good things to shoot there. If you haven’t been photographing roads and crowds, give it a go. And if you have, try a different road.

10. Join a Demonstration
Demonstrations are full of flags, banners, placards and crowds. You can lose people in the mass or pick out expressions in the crowd. The only cause you have to support is photography.

11. Watch a Sports Event
The pros have it easiest at sports events with prime positions and lenses longer than your arm. But you can still try something new at your park on a Saturday afternoon.

12. Visit the Zoo
It might not be as thrilling as a Kenyan safari, but a zoo still has the sort of photographic subjects you can’t find anywhere else. Of course, you don’t have to try to squeeze your lens between the bars. Shooting the kids in awe at the monkeys can create some interesting images too.

13. Shoot Fast at a Race Track

Photography: joel.weismann

Race tracks also give you an opportunity to use a new technique: speed. Fast cars and a faster shutter speed can make for some inspired shooting.

14. Visit an Exhibition
Obvious, really. And yet so often overlooked. Any decent-sized town is likely to have at least one photographic exhibition on at any one time. Take in yours and see what the top photographers did to get on the wall.

15. Browse Google Images
You don’t even have to leave the house to find inspiring images though. Toss keywords into Google Images, admire the good photos that turn up and ask how you would have improved the poor ones.

16. Join Flickr Groups
The pictures in Flickr Groups are great places to see what other people are doing with a theme; the discussions are great places to find out how they did it. And you’ll probably find that the feedback you get on your own photos will give you plenty to think about too.

17. Just Step Back and Watch
For children’s photographers in particular, there can be a temptation to just dive in and get the photos. Sometimes though, lowering the lens, stepping back and watching the subject can reveal whole new sides. That’s true for portrait photographers, wedding photographers, animal photographers… in fact just about any photographer!

18. Roam the World with Flickr Maps
Flickr Maps might be a bit slower than Google Maps, but it comes with Flickr Images built-in. Choose a part of the world with interesting topography and see what photographers have done with it.

19. Change your Angle
Most people shoot an object by placing the lens right in front of it. When David Rubinger lay on the floor to shoot up at paratroopers in front of Jerusalem’s Western Wall during Israel’s Six Day War, he created an iconic image. What would you create?

20. Change your Time
Find yourself shooting at the same time of day each weekend? So break a habit. Discover what the light at dusk, mid-afternoon or early morning can do for your ideas. And it’s not just the light that can make the difference here. Just breaking your routine can often be enough to give you a new perspective and a whole new way photography habit.

21. Browse Stock Sites
You don’t have to be a buyer to check out the images on stock sites. You can be a professional photographer looking for ideas too… especially ideas for commercial images. And the searching is simple. Looking at the top-sellers will give you a good idea of what the market is buying, and browsing by category will show what other photographers are doing with their themes.

22. Write a Blog
Darren Rowse, over at Digital Photography School, mentions how much just writing about photography has helped to improve his picture-taking. It doesn’t matter if no one reads it; just putting your thoughts on the page could give you some new ones.

23. Read a Blog
Of course, reading a photography blog is even more inspiring thing than writing one. Not only can you learn what went into a photo and where the idea came from, you can also discover how to sell it. But then we would say that, wouldn’t we?

24. Buy a Photography Book
You can never own too many photography books, and each one you buy should give you a bunch of new ideas. Although that’s true of both books of photographs and books about taking pictures, you might find that photography guides give you more inspiration than a collection of images. The former will give you techniques to try out, while the latter will show you the techniques the greats have used. Stil, if you’re really stuck, go shopping.

25. Browse a Bookstore
Or save your cash, take a pile of book to the store’s café and sit and enjoy yourself. In fact, you don’t even have to take the photography books with you. Even the dust jackets of the hardbacks can give you ideas for shots, especially commercial images.

26. Step Away from the Magazine Racks

Photography: cathyse97

And if book covers can give you ideas, just think what magazine covers can do. These are designed to be eye-catching and stand out on a shelf. They could make your next photo stand out too.

27. Make Friends in the Photography World
Some photographers find it easiest to shoot alone. Others like to shoot as a group. Everyone can benefit from the feedback, discussions and habits of other photographers.

28. Join Photography Organizations
If you’re a professional and you’re not a member of a professional photography organization, you should be. Not only can organizations help with insurance and legal matters, their news, contests, and profiles of other photographers can inspire to make your own splash among your peers.

29. Shoot Yourself
Photography: hen power

When you’re stuck for a subject, always remember that there’s an interesting one behind the lens too. Be brave. Put yourself in the shot for a change.

30. Revisit Your Past
You probably have a stack of old images that you rarely review, including many that you can’t bring yourself to look at. Give them another chance. A shot that failed a few years ago might well be achievable today — and give you ideas for more.

31. Revisit Places You’ve Been Before
And the same is true of locations. Even if you’ve taken a photograph in one location, it doesn’t follow that you’ll take exactly the same image a few days, months or years later. The light will be different, your skills will be different… and so will you.

32. Ask “What if…?”
Some of the greatest artistic answers have come from asking the right questions. A good one to start with is always “What if…?” What if you focused on the foreground instead of the background? What if you changed the ISO? What if you got a flash of inspiration?

33. Leave Constructive Comments
We’ve mentioned that writing blogs can help to give you new ideas, but so can writing comments on other people’s images. Just make sure the comments are constructive. Praise the photographer’s use of shadow, for example, and you’ll be telling yourself how to get similar praise.

34. Join Photo Contests
Everyone and their uncle these days seems to be running a photography competition. And for good reason. They’re a great way to motivate photographers to shoot outside their boxes.

35. Choose a Theme
Photo contests are helpful because in addition to prizes, they also give subjects to shoot. But you don’t have to actually enter a contest to win one of those. You can pick your own theme. You could even use the categories on stock sites as inspiration for subjects.

36. Check out the Big Winners
And of course, taking a look at images shot by the winners of big photo contests, such as the Pictures of the Year, can show how far your image are from those at the top of the profession… and what you need to do to join them.

37. Go Back to the Rules
You probably know the rules of photography. And you probably know how to bend them and when to break them too. So maybe go back to when you were first learning techniques and try working strictly to rule for a while.

38. Just Shoot Anyway
There are always times when you lift the camera, look at the screen and think, “No.” But what would happen if you did it anyway? At worst, you’d waste a bit of disk space. At best, you might surprise yourself and find a new kind of composition.

39. Get a Cause
Few people are more motivated than those who believe they’re working for the common good. So join them. Pick a cause, offer it your photography skills and the end will help inspire the means. You could find yourself shooting all sorts of things from campaign posters to t-shirt images to angry demonstrations. The variety should be as satisfying as the campaigning.

40. Play with Textures
While photographers often pay attention to light and composition, the texture of the materials in the subject can be left behind. Try focusing on touch rather than vision for a few shots and see what happens…

41. Play with Colors
Or be traditional and paint your pictures with bold colors and sharp contrasts. Or try using different tones of just one or two colors and see what that does for yourt results. It might not be original but if you haven’t done it before, it could be time to give experimenting with colors a try.

42. Drop Color Altogether

Photography: cayusa

Of course, you could also be super-traditional and focus on practicing your skills in black-and-white. Do you know which shots would look best without color?

43. Play with Settings
Chances are, once you’ve found a camera setting that works for you, you don’t stray from it too far. So start straying. Play with the exposure, change the ISO, switch the shutter speed. And build on the results.

44. Play with a Point-and-Shoot
When you shoot with a DSLR, you can get used to all the bells, whistles and options that come with an expensive camera. So lay it aside, pick up an instant and shoot on the cheap. You’ll be amazed at what downgrading can do for your creativity.

45. Just Play
The beauty of digital photography is that there’s no penalty for making mistakes. That gives you a free ticket to stop worrying about whether a picture will turn out well or be an embarrassing flop, and just shoot. So try just enjoy taking photographs without thinking too much about the results.

46. Try a Different Specialty
Whether you specialize in wedding, portraits or anything else, try a niche you’ve never done before. You don’t have to do it professionally but just doing it for a while could give you a whole new bag of techniques and inspire new ways of creating your images.

47. Read Forums
We’ve mentioned that Flickr Groups can be good places to find inspiration but so can photography forums. Often, photographers use them to pose questions, but even those questions can get you thinking. The answers can get you shooting. (That can include your answers too. Tossing in your own two cents’ worth can get you thinking about all things you’re not doing — or haven’t been doing yet.)

48. Start a Project
Inspiration might come in a flash but you want it to hang around. Instead of thinking of an idea for one photograph, try thinking of an idea for a series of photographs. If you’d decided to take pictures of lightning for example, expand the concept to include extreme weather as a whole and add photographs of windswept trees and sun-bleached rooftops. That should keep you busy for a while…

49. Take a Photography Class
Photography classes make thinking up ideas very easy. You’ll even be given assignments so that you don’t have to think up subjects at all, just novel approaches to them.

50. Take any Class

Photography: absolutwade

But you don’t have to limit yourself to a photography class. A cooking class will let you create photography subjects that you can eat. A flower-arranging class could give you new ideas for floral photography. Even an origami class could provide a pile of new ideas for images.

51. Define the Perfect Image
Do you know what the perfect image would look like? Bet you’re thinking about it now, right? Instead of thinking how good the next shoot would be, try thinking about what the best shot would look like… then find it.

52. Create a Shooting Schedule
One way to cut back on the regular head-scratching is to plan ahead. Pull out a calendar and decide in advance what sort of images you’ll be shooting each weekend for the next few months. And leave room for flexibility.

53. Pick a Different Model
If you always use the same models or models with similar looks go for something completely different: the opposite sex, a different height, a new age group. See what a different subject can for your ideas.

54. Ignore the Silly Criticism
This one won’t boost your inspiration but it might stop it being blocked. Ask people to comment on your photos and you’ll always get someone with something dumb to say. The challenge is to pick out the constructive comments and leave out the smartass ones that can make you think twice in the future.

55. Do Something Totally Outrageous
Ever told yourself “That would never work?” Well, here’s a “what if…” What if it did work? Go ahead, surprise yourself. Shoot what’s under the sofa. Snap the top of your head. Do something outrageously silly… and see if it works.

56. Give yourself Limits
Some of the greatest literature has been written under the strictest censorship. So limit yourself. Close the door and shoot only an object that you can find in the room. Or tell yourself that you have to produce a fantastic image within the next half hour. Take up the challenge

57. Tell a Story
Good pictures always tell a story. So try thinking of a story then go out and create the images that illustrate it. That could be the story of your street, a narrative describing a community or even the progression of a cub baseball team. Find where your story begins then use your camera to follow it through to the end.

58. Print your Pictures
It’s one thing to view your photos on a computer screen but printing them out and holding them in your hand can be something else altogether. Try printing a selection of your photos and see whether they still work on paper… and how you can improve them.

59. Take an Object, Any Object…
We started this list by pointing out that flea markets are full of strange objects to photograph. But there’s a limit to how you can photograph an individual object in a flea market. So take one home or pick something off the shelf and give yourself a whole new set of still lifes.

60. Buy New Equipment
And if all else fails, you can always use cash. A burst of new ideas always seems to come free with a new lens.

TAKEN FROM blogs.photopreneur.com

This last december was a bit odd, I was robbed, they took my laptop and 2 iPods, I had all my backups and all my clients jobs in those, for sure one of the most delicate situations in my life, I didn’t know what to do. So I decided to start a blog and save some of the jobs I done and share them with everyone. This would allow me to promote myself too.

In these last 12 months I’ve seen lots of really good designs, they have inspired me and helped me to get over this unfortunate incident. The outcome of that made me think and focus so to celebrate this past year and to welcome the next I decided to post ( in my opinion) 2007 ´s best designs. Enjoy!

TAKEN FROM abduzeedo.com

Ever wondered just how much your best photograph could be worth if it was put up for auction?

Here are the photos that have won the five highest bids when put on the block.

Of course, we’re not saying that one of your photographs could be worth this much… but then again, who knows?

1. Andreas Gursky’s “99 Cent II Diptych”

Photo Courtesy Sotheby’s

The first photograph to sell for more than $3 million, Andreas Gurky’s 99 cent II, Diptych reached $3,340,456 at a Sotheby’s auction in London, February 2007. This was the third time the photograph had sold for more than $2 million. Another print of the same image was sold for $2.25 million in May, 2006, and yet another print had reached $2.48 million just six months later.

Interestingly, the record-breaking photograph was sold not at a photography auction, but at a sale of contemporary art. That might suggest that how an artwork is sold plays an important role in defining how much it can sell for.

2. Edward Steichen’s “The Pond-Moonlight”

Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Just missing the $3 million mark, and for a while the world’s highest-selling photograph, Edward Steichen’s “The Pond - Moonlight” was sold for $2,928,000 at Sotheby’s in New York in February, 2006.

The picture shows moonlight between trees and reflecting on a pond, and appears to be in color. However, color photography did not begin until 1907, three years after the photograph was taken.

Steichen used layers of light-sensitive gum to create an impression of color. Only three prints exist, with the other two in museum collections.

One way to create an expensive photo then could be to use a unique process, keep it rare… and wait a hundred years.

3. Richard Prince’s “Anonymous (Cowboy)”

Courtesy of Christie’s

Richard Prince’s photograph of a cowboy was perhaps an odd choice as the first photograph to reach a million dollars at auction. It sold for $1,248,000 at Christie’s in New York in November 2005.

The photograph, which was taken in 1989, wasn’t original but a shot of part of a Marlboro ad. Prince had started shooting images of magazine ads while collating press clips for Time Life in the 1970s.

The only other image, other than the proof in the possession of the artist, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Subject matter and rarity count it seems.

4. Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s “Athènes, T[emple] de J[upiter] olympien pris de l’est”

Courtesy of Christie’s

It’s a little easier to understand the appeal — and the price — of French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s image of the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter in Athens, which was sold at Christie’s in London for $922,488 in 2003.

Shot in 1842, the daguerreotype is believed to be the oldest image of the temple still existing.

It makes you wonder what the first photograph of the iPhone might be worth in 150 years…

5. Gustave Le Gray’s “The Great Wave, Sete”

Sometimes a combination of the rarity an old image brings and a striking subject matter can be enough to create a high price. For Gustave Le Gray, it created a picture that sold for $838,000 at Sotheby’s in London in 1999.

Le Gray’s image marked the first time that a photographer had managed to expose landscape and sky correctly in the same image. He did this by creating one negative for the sky and one for the sea, and printing them together on the same sheet of paper. In effect, he created a collage.

It’s an easy technique for a modern photographer to emulate but try doing it without a digital camera, Photoshop… and from a glass negative.

Before you start sorting through your archive to pull out better images than these, bear in mind that the value of a photograph at auction depends on all sorts of factors that go beyond the quality of the image. These might include the state of the stock market, the fame of the artist, the number of prints, when the print was made and the restrictions imposed on the negative.

Creating a million dollar photo often requires a lot more than getting the shot right.

See what’s now on the block at Sotheby’s photography auctions here, and Christie’s here, and tell us what you think of the price of photographic art.

TAKEN FROM blogs.photopreneur.com

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As I’ve recently become more active with Flickr, I’ve encountered some amazing photographers. I realize that I’ve only seen a glimpse of the artists out there, and I’m truly excited to continue exploring this community. Out of my 100+ contacts (which isn’t many at all), I find myself being drawn to the works of a select few. Here are five photographers who absolutely amaze me.

MARTIN GOMMEL

- Germany

I admire Martin’s amazing landscape photography and his incredible ability to capture a scene. His images are extremely well thought out and it’s easy to tell that he aims for perfection. They convey a true sense of scale and many of his landscapes look too good to be real. I’m also a fan of Martin’s architecture photos and his black & white work. Martin also has a photography blog and a photoblog.

EMILY HIGGINSON

- Canada

Emily’s style is truly unique. It’s hard to fully describe, but it’s dark and I love it. I can’t say that any one of her genres really stands out from the rest of her work, but anything she displays has a great sense of mood about it. Emily comes across as being highly artistic and creative with the camera and post-processing. In addition to the photos shown here, her people shots are quite interesting too.

JIM GOLDSTEIN

- America

Jim is like the younger version of Art Wolfe; he’s certainly proven his ability in outdoor photography. His nature and landscape photographs exhibit parts of our world at its absolute best, and they show the untamed beauty of it all. Recently, Jim has also been producing some stunning cityscapes, particularly at night. Jim also has a photography blog and an online gallery.

ANOOP NEGI

- India

Anoop has a gifted ability to convey a sense of culture in his photos. He truly captures the moment and brings his viewers right into the scene. Photographing people in their environment is a difficult area to tackle, and Anoop does it quite well. He doesn’t limit his abilities to culture; he also has an impressive set of landscape and countryside photos. Anoop also has a photography blog.

MARKO KOSOVCEVIC

- Serbia

Marko has a fantastic ability to present images in new and intriguing ways. His compositions, use of texture, other post-processing techniques transform an ordinary subject into a work of art. The scenes that Marko presents have a sense of strange reality to them, sometimes as if you were looking into another world. Marko also has a photography blog.

TAKEN FROM blog.epicedits.com

When you mention patterned/tiled backgrounds, people immediately think of horrid MySpace pages and web designs circa-1990’s. It is therefore a worthy achievement when an artist is able to use this technique to make a website look stunning and attractive. An effective background design pattern can leave a memorable and positive feeling on the people who view these works of art.

by Ben Ostrowsky

Here I’ve compiled 20 beautiful and artistic websites that use tiled patterns to set their webpage apart from the ordinary.

1) Enlighten Designs

2) DNA

3) Sideshow

4) We Do The Web

5) Impressive Work

6) Hotel Belwether

7) David Loop

Olly Hite

9) OnTrack

10) Elitist Snob

11) Imagined Creative

12) THE SIDES

13) Tanya Merone

14) kesone.de

15) Jen Gordon

16) Viget Labs

17) variable.nz

18) Robert Beerworth Blog Australia

19) MAKAO

20) Saint Augustine Bed and Breakfast

These are all designs I feel have truly achieved a unique look by using a background pattern instead of going the safe route with a solid color.

Do you have any other websites to add to the list? Did I miss a website that belongs here? Be sure to leave the links on your comments.

Special Thanks & taken from sixrevisions.com

Foggy Dubai - A View from Burj Dubai