Happy Mother's Day, Mother!

I love you very much, Mother Enzaldo! Not just on Mother's Day, but on all days of the year. Someone (I forget) said something so very obvious, but so very profound about mothers: you only get one.

Sorry I turned out to be such a goofy kid. (You get one of those eventually.)

Coming up next:: engagement session, Flatirons-style. Stay tuned...

A daily peek inside the Obama Administration, on Flickr

One way you can tell there's a new President in town is in how this new administration is providing transparency in hip, Web 2.0 ways. The White House is not only on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, but now on Flickr.

This is where photography and politics meet. The White House has its own official photostream and it's updated almost daily, showing what's going on with the Prez and his friends. The official White House Photographer is Pete Souza, a university professor now on official "hiatus". He also photographed the latter years of President Reagan's term, plus he traveled all around the country with the Obama presidential campaign.

Sweet job, I must say. Mr. Souza has almost unlimited access to the President.

There's even a Photo Office inside the White House. It's really fun to browse these photos to see just who this Barack Obama is, beyond the speeches and the aura of fame and grandeur. He's just a hard-workin' dude! With a lot of connections.

You can spot Pete Souza occasionally if you ever watch Obama on CNN's video section, following the President wherever he goes. What's best, all these Flickr photos are available in hi-rez! So you can print out your own little Obama shrine. Some of my favorites::

Every photog has seen this reaction before. "Just, why are you taking my picture right now..." (Nothing but love for ya!)


That's cool that he still signs books when he's on the road (go get em on Ebay!)


Nothing but the best for Barack!


I'm really hungry right now so I'm going to get a burger. You can check out the whole Flickr photostream here.

You can also check out Time's daily White House photo here. (Callie Shell is another great photographer who has amazing access to the President.) Time frequently posts slideshows too.

And if that's not enough, you can check out this slideshow gallery on the White House's own website. It's sporadically updated.

And even if all that isn't enough to satisfy your Obamamania, check out the official White House blog. Photos and movies are posted all the time and they're all downloadable. Go get it!

How I bought a brand-new Mac at 25% off

A good way to save a little money on big retail purchases is to purchase gift cards on Ebay! Most major retailers sell gift cards, and many are put on Ebay because sellers want cash more. And almost all of these cards are purchased on Ebay at discount.

You might get lucky and save up to 30% (like winning a $300 gift card for $200), but I've found that savings average around 10-15%. If you're buying anything big like a new desktop or $1000 worth of chocolate from Target, you might as well buy gift cards to that store and save some cash.

The best auctions to take advantage of are the 1-days (people need cash yesterday, I guess). That short auction lessens the number of watchers, and you can get your top bid in before people even have a chance to bid themselves. Also, some sellers are desperate and slap on a tempting Buy It Now price.

Here are some other ways to save::

+ Look for any corporate discounts from people who work there. Many corporations offer small discounts to other corporations, and vice versa. In my case, they just had to register their work info online for verification, and presto chango! I'm shopping online at discount prices. Students also get discounts at some websites (like Apple). Nota bene: I'm not saying use your friend's work discount for purchases at their work. That might be weird between friends at some point.

+ Go old-school and use coupons, or buy coupons on Ebay. People cut them out and sell the same coupon in bundles. It's great! Last month I bought $60 worth of tea for around $20 with a grocery store promotion, an unexpected closeout sale, and coupons that I basically got for free on Ebay. I drink 5-6 cups a day so it definitely works out.

+ There are always discount and promotional codes floating about the Interwebs. Go to websites like www.retailmenot.com to see if there's a current code available. It might save you some cash! If you buy anything online, search for that store's name + discount code before checkout. I bought some bulk almond flour from some random small business out-of-state and I got 10% off from a code I found online.

+ Also, you might as well ask the cashier if they have any discounts for you. Hey, it's the recession. It's fashionable to get a deal.

+ There's another way to save even more--by purchasing Ebay gift cards on Ebay and using them to purchase other gift cards on Ebay. For some reason though, they're all bid up a little higher than they're worth. Which kinda defeats the purpose. There must be a loophole that I'm not aware of.

So there! Start saving. I don't see myself buying any expensive retail items at full price again. It's all on sale as far I'm concerned! (I should have thought of this before buying my 50D on Amazon...) So if you're a regular customer at Whole Foods or Target or Apple or wherever, you might as well shop at discount while the guy behind you pays full price.

Go get it.

The best $20 I ever spent, last week (workflow)

Sometimes a text file on my Mac doesn't cut it. So I went old-school last week and bought a big dry-erase board and started my new method of keeping things organized! 

It's awesome. Things to buy are on the left, things to do in the middle, and Ideas that come to me at completely random times are on the right.

Whenever I need to remind myself what I need to do with photography or just everyday priorities, I don't need to rack my brain or search for it on the Mac; I just look at the big white board! The catch is to *immediately* capture the idea by writing it down; then erasing when I've completed the task or purchased the item. Who knew.

And those double-color eraser-tipped markers are magnetic! I bought it at Target. This is one of two boards that will be on either side of my new desktop (arriving shortly!), and both will do wonders in keeping my photography workflow in ship-shape shape. Thanks, GTD! Details on the other board coming soon...

World Press Photo meets financial crisis (photos of the year)

My friends, I was "raised" photographically by photo agencies like Magnum Photos and National Geographic. I learned how to shoot photojournalistically before I learned the first thing about weddings. So naturally, I carry some sort of gravitas in some of my images. In any field, though, I think photography does a really good job of portraying the eternal clash between the ying and yang of human nature—namely, fear and desire.

You might also call it love and hate. Or good and evil. Whatever your take is, any image tends to lean towards one or the other. Either a picture of a happy dog jumping up in the air, or a grainy image of a ragged family overlooking a war-torn landscape that has seen better days. However, I guess the most evocative images are those that are the most ambiguous. Like this one::

This won Photo of the Year from World Press Photo.

Taken without context, you might think: war zone. Post-burglary. Somewhere in Russia or something (I just picked a country, no offense to Russians! :).

Taken in context, though, a different story. The caption reads:: "Following eviction, Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their home in Cleveland, Ohio."

Whoa! Now there's a story. But the mystery remains. Why is everything in such disarray? Did looters previously ransack the place? Amazing.

Sometimes I look at these "first place" photographs, and I think, What are they (the judges) thinking. It's grainy, blurry, slightly out-of-focus. It's not technically precise! Then I realize, anything goes in photojournalism. As long as the image's content tells a story, portrays an emotion, emulates either fear or desire (or somehow both!), it works as an image. Its content, the symphony of its elements, will trump technical skill every time. You can have the sharpest, crispest, most vibrant image in the world, and it still can't hold a candle to what another image's content may show you.

This gives me reassurance, because sometimes I don't focus so good! Check out the other World Press Photo contest winners to see what passes for amazing photography these days.