GPS – An Overview

GPS Satellite via Wikipedia

The system sounds very complicated. More than thirty satellites orbit the earth and dozens of monitoring stations are operated internationally by the sinister-sounding National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The system can predict earthquakes, plot nuclear explosions and keep the world’s clocks accurate to within ten nanoseconds. The whole network cost billions to develop and many millions a year to maintain…

Matching Your Passion for Photography with a Promising Career

This ancient Indian elephant shared a secret with me. Look for the profile of an Indian woman facing to the right. Her head starts at his eye, and her sari-wrapped body extends to the bottom of the image by his mouth. Taken with an Olympus Camedia C-740 UltraZoom

Photographers make a living in almost any industry and location – creating art, uncovering unseen data, documenting details, or telling a story. There are so many kinds of careers in photography – from highly creative to highly technical – that it can be difficult to choose which path to follow.

This is a guest post by Ellen Barry from BrainTrack.

5 Sites with Great Tech Deals

Anyone who reads thememoirs knows that Range finds some of the coolest, quirkiest and most expensive gadgets out there. Trying to find some you haven’t seen may be a bit of a challenge, so we decided to go in opposite direction and locate sites where you might find some of the cheapest gadgets.

There are tons of sites that have gone through the trouble of rounding up the great deals for you, so now it’s our turn to do the rounding up. Here are five great sites for finding tech deals we think you’ll enjoy.

Top Ten List of the Most Inspirational Photography Books

By Le Niners, minutes before sunrise in Normandy, France

It takes a special talent, and sometimes a little luck, to get stunning results with photography. Creating images through technique and just the right setting is something many of us would love to achieve, and sometimes we get lucky, producing a photograph that we know is special. Amazing photography can be found in some wonderful compilations, from film photography to digital, black and white to color. Photography that depicts historical events, explores the far reaches of the world, cultures, and the natural beauty of landscapes and animals can make an impact that words alone cannot. Here is a top ten list of books where pictures are more than pictures, they are inspiration.

Why Some Photographs Make More of an Impact than Others

Quebec City in April '09. There was snow until May.

If you ask a photographer to choose the best picture they’ve clicked, it’s like asking a parent to choose one child over the other – in their eyes, every photograph is equally beautiful. But, beauty lies in the eyes of the true beholder, the people who are supposed to admire and appreciate the work of art of the photographer. And although we all have our favorites, there are some pictures that universally make more of an impact than others, because:

• They are interesting: It’s the subject of a photograph that captivates, whether it is a simple flower or a complicated landscape. The way it is captured on screen, to highlight all its plus points, makes the picture even more attractive. Most photographers look for interesting subjects and then use techniques, angles and lighting to make the pictures stunning in their beauty.
• They are timed to perfection: The most awe-inspiring shots are often of nature in all its fury or man in unbelievable action poses. When we see avalanches rolling down mountains, lions attacking antelopes and sportsmen caught on film in mid-air, we naturally draw our breaths at the sheer beauty of the shot. The key to making these pictures look good is perfect timing – you need to be in the right place at the right time and also make sure that the light, position and angles are correct.
• They have sentimental value: I’m sure no one can forget the picture of a little girl running naked on the streets, her body burning from the acid and her mouth screaming in pain, following the napalm incendiary bomb attack by U.S. Air Force planes. This one photograph was enough to bring about awareness of the horrors and atrocities of the Vietnam War. And even today, years after the little girl recovered and put behind the ghastly experience, this photo tugs your heartstrings and reminds you of the futility of war.
• They are rare: Some pictures capture those rare occurrences and elusive objects, things and events that you have to wait for what seems like eternity. Photographs of animals thought to be extinct or natural phenomena that occur once in a blue moon are admired and appreciated because they are rare and one-off occurrences that we do not get to see often.

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This guest post was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of top photography colleges. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions via email at adrienne dot carlson1 at gmail dot com. Photo by Range.