http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php Welcome to the Suiiter Designs Blog! This blog focuses on photography, philosophy, technique, news, and hopefully other things you'll find interesting to read. Be sure to add us to your newsreader of choice, and feel free to stop by the blog and leave a comment sometime! eng http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=281 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=281
We are also working on phasing in our new slogan "there's always a sweeter way to do it". With the company moving and growing in an even more diversified direction than ever, we've been putting lots of thought and planning behind our goals and how that ties in with our branding. We always want to be known primarily for our work, and our transparency, and we want this to come through in all our visuals and branding decisions. We think the card are a good start to what is shaping up to be an exciting year for us both externally and internally.

So, to keep up to date with everything happening, be sure to follow us on twitter/facebook, and subscribe to our RSS feed if you like to get your news that way and follow us, or if you are interested in Calgary marketing.

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Laughable right? If your not laughing, then you've heard this line probably one too many times. This business model is a very unfortunate reality for many creative firms of all shapes, sizes, and specialties. Relationships are forged between client and vendor on the promise of connections, and a lifetime of quality referrals to big name folks in high up places. More often than not, this isn't the way things end up turning out.

Before you know it, you've already put in 4 times the number of hours you originally planned to spend on the project, and you realize you can only invoice 1/4 of your time at half price. Already you are frustrated because you feel ripped off, and the client is frustrated because they don't feel they are getting the 'full price' treatment. At the end of the day, no one is happy, and your dreams of big contracts and lifelong good recommendations have gone down the toilet, along with a heap of un-billable hours, and most of your sanity.

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I'd like to propose perhaps the single most important part of forging client and project relationships: choosing the right ones to begin with. If you've done diligence, and put effort into choosing the clients and projects you work on, it generally becomes MUCH easier to finish them both on time, and on budget so everyone ends up happy. The truth is that everyone has the luxury of choosing who and what projects you take... in fact it is a right and a privilege afforded by living in this free market.

Smaller, newer companies are often prime targets for bait and switch type deals, promising big dividends for only a 'little bit of free work' or speculative work. There are plenty of red flag phrases that serve as warning that this might be the wrong project. Probably the most common (and most dangerous one) is "We don't have money now, but this idea will pay for itself and we'll pay you later", which often means "We haven't even written a full paragraph in our business plan yet".

Once upon a time, I thought it was bad business practice to ask the question "what is your budget for this project?" because it seemed to me at the time that I was coming across too pushy, trying to scrape every cent available from the client. However, I have since learned that this should essentially the first question that is asked. A project or client without a budget, or at least a budget range, is a client without a plan or a strategy. The exception here, is when a client knows exactly what they want, and are looking for a price. However, the role here is primarily vendor, not consultant. This is a key separation to be aware of.

No one goes shopping for a home without first visiting the bank to determine what they can afford. No one who is looking to purchase a new vehicle does so without first knowing approximately what the are able to afford. This budget will determine whether your new vehicle is a Pinto or a Maserati Spider. The same is true with creative. Will this shiny new website be a full fledged interactive online social marketplace backed by a national advertisement campaign, or a WordPress template blog with $5 / month in facebook advertising? Will this photo shoot be an hour in the local park to be used as a facebook profile picture, or a team of 50 models, producers, assistants and 13 shipping containers full of equipment traveling to Patagonia to market a worldwide sports chain?

The key here is to know what you are getting into. Learn the clients history and the back-story of the project. Be sure that there is a financial plan and a strategy to back up the big ideas. A little wisdom and foresight here can go a long ways. Learn to recognize the 'red-flag' hooks that might be tossed your way. Always operate on a fair, transparent contract, and never undersell yourself for the promise of future success. Free cheese burgers won't get you anywhere, instead, focus on consistent, good work at the right price to pay the real long term dividends for your business....]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=273 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=273
We all have great ideas. Many of us have great ideas all the time. I think personally, I have a great idea every 15.2 seconds. On average. As professionals in all areas of business, is creativity really our problem? It's often really easy to sit down around the table as a creative team and come up with great marketing ideas, great ideas for blog posts on our site, and even a whole list of amazingly creative ways to reach a broader audience more effectively. Creativity is easy, so what is the real challenge? Is it innovation?
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Innovation is defined, quite simply, as "the introduction of something new". In our business, this is essentially two fold: first the pitch to the client, and the delivery to the audience. Easy? Maybe not so much. Everyone likes to talk about creativity, how 'creative' an idea is, or how new and fresh it seems. There is a natural tendency to dumb down and label everything revolutionary as creativity. Unfortunately, creativity is most certainly not the key to success, at least not on its own.

The real key to successfully introducing a new idea, especially in the context of a paying project or client, is to actually apply creative thinking to the exectution: the actual real world innovation of the idea. Really, the only thing that separates a cool idea from a world changing or mind shifting innovation is in the execution.

The reality for most of us is that status quo is easy, status quo is cheap, status quo is timely. You don't have to work late for status quo, you don't have to think outside the box to deliver status quo. The challenge here is obvious: How do we take that amazing idea, and with a little effort, innovate it into something revolutionary, or (at worst) different? Can we turn status quo into mind shifting and game changing? Can we raise the bar on a limited budget and timeline?

Get innovative, make your next idea a revolution....]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=271 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=271
I admit it, we've been a little bit slow on the blog updating over the past few weeks (months?) here at Suiiter. It is certainly not for lack of motivation, or lack of inspiration, rather a pretty severe lack of time. Things have been ramping up in every possible way for us over the last few months, and we are absolutely ecstatic to be working on some very exciting campaigns with some top notch people both locally, and across the country. Calgary Marketing and Advertising is changing on a week by week basis, and it is exciting for us to be near the forefront.

That, and just a general lack of an extra day during the work week has presented us with a bit of a time crunch when it comes to our own site and blog! Fortunately, thanks to all these different projects, we have collected almost an unlimited supply of inspiration and wisdom that we are pretty excited to share. Today is part one of a two part (maybe 4 part) series on relationships.

Just how important is relationship? More after the jump...[jump]

Relationship is #1. Easy to say right? I'm sure everyone already agrees with this statement with regards to business in general - but what does this actually mean for those of us in the business world, specifically the creative industry? Whether we realize it or not, we form and maintain relationships almost every moment of every day. Every phone call, email, meeting, facebook or twitter update, tip given to a waitress, middle finger flashed in the rear view mirror... these are all facets of our day to day relationship building (or destruction). How are we presenting ourselves? Who are we presenting ourselves too?

There are really 3 key internal and external relationships that are critical to our success in business: clients, vendors, and internal team members. My next post will deal with vendors and team members, however today i will be focusing mostly on clients... clearly, you can't really call it a business unless there is a client, someone actually purchasing the service or product.

There is a key phrase I have been repeating almost relentlessly over the last few months: 'do good work, do it consistently, and eventually the right person will notice'. This simple statement really is the foundation for the success of any business. The problem is that without relationship, no one will ever notice your excellent work. There are thousands of individuals and agencies out there who are more than capable of creating absolutely top notch work on a variety of mediums, but many are unable to find anyone that is interested in their work to give them a call. So how do we find these people? On the scale of our local community, Calgary, marketing and advertising can be both diverse and competitive. How can we find a way to fit into the nationwide picture?

The answer, which i'm sure you've already guessed, is relationship... with who? Well, everyone! Although the scale of this concept differs with the scale of your company, the foundation is still the same. Everyone you meet or talk to is your client. The practical side of this is that you yourself are your company. You're best representation of the quality of your work, and the quality of your service is quite simply how you interact with everyone you meet on a day to day basis.

The slippery slope of success is a difficult place to navigate, especially early on. The truth is that you never know where your next referral will come from, and who. This is critical: treat everyone you meet with the same extreme level of professionalism and quality. As a growing company, many of our biggest contracts and clients have developed out of the smallest and most insignificant projects. These projects and clients that some may write off as irrelevant may be the one opportunity that you did not expect that turns into that big break. In the heat of a competitive market such as the city of Calgary marketing, advertising and relationships on even the most insignificant level must literally radiate quality and excellence.

Maybe instead of just 'doing' good work consistently, we need to live our good work right on our sleeve. Live professionalism, do it consistently, and eventually the right person will notice.

Part two: Vendor relationships. Stay tuned!...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=266 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=266
We are all pretty awe struck by the open approach thats been taken by Chase Jarvis and partners. We all kind of stopped everything we were doing and tuned in live after receiving a tweet from #cjlive informing us of an amazing live announcement about to happen!

In a nut shell, Chase and a lot of friends, little known name individuals like oh . . . Vincent Laforet & Art Wolfe to name a few will be offering FREE online classes and tutorials all geared to help, educate and teach people around the world and offer a resources that we may otherwise never be able to attain.

If you love Creativity, design, photography, art etc. and you want to be connected to a place that will grow your skill set and knowledge of particular programs, skill sets or innovation, you need to talk it upon your self to check out this brand new website where you can tune into FREE classes to better service your passions in these areas!

Enjoy . . .

www.creativelive.com
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There seems to be a growing sentiment these days among photographers that the photography industry is being slowly devalued. Although this is probably a little bit of an over-exaggeration, there is some truth that photographers rights and intellectual property rights in general do get stepped on every so often. The biggest question I think most face is really just "So where do I draw the line?" To answer this question, we need to take a good look at the business end of intellectual property creation.
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There is a fine line can separates over-catering to actually profiting as a company or individual. In every industry, there is always a minority that assumes that licensing something is the same as purchasing. It often becomes commonplace to assume that paying money for something automatically includes the rights to re-purpose it, or at the extreme, reselling it all together. To make matters worse for photographers specifically, many have become accustomed to utilizing sites such as flickr.com as free stock photography sites, many have come across their images on all manner of web and print advertising. This has helped create sort of an un-spoken atmosphere of 'everything digital is free'. Even in chats with friends and partners in the Calgary marketing and advertising scene, it is amazing sometimes how even established communities of professionals can cut corners and publish unlicensed intellectual property.

Of course, this certainly isn't the case. Copyright law is very clear in both the US and Canada that unless transferred in writing, copyright and ownership always remains the property of the creator.. for the purposes of this blog, the photographer. There are of course certain exceptions (mainly with regards to work for hire), however, it is important to be clear that the only thing that is ever purchased, is a license to use an image, for a specific purpose, for only a specified amount of time.

So what can we as service providers do? Well, for starters, here are a few things that I have developed as my own personal policy as I have developed my business over the last few years:

1) Remain professional. Above all things, remain professional. This includes having the proper documentation (contracts, licensing, image releases, model releases) for your business, and using them. Be clear on what they mean, and don't leave anything to guesswork. Also, be as clear and open as possible with regards to your timelines. We all get busy, however it is important to maintain open communication with everyone. That way, no one needs to make assumptions, which is never in anyone's best interest.

2) Educating clients and partners. Many companies that hire photographers often don't fully understand copyright law, licensing, or what it actually means to hire a photographer. It is our job as photographers and intellectual property creators to educate our clients and customers.. Often this is simply sitting down in those initial meetings to discuss licensing and terms up front. This won't just help you and your client, it will help out all those photographers down the road who may work with the same client. Of course, all of this talk won't mean a whole lot unless all this is put in writing, which brings me to:

3) Contracts and releases. This is the single most underestimated and yet by far the most important aspect of any business, let alone photography. To protect yourself, your clients, and your fellow photographers, always write a comprehensive contract and get it signed with a witness. This contract will serve as a guideline and scope for both the work and the deliverables and timeline for the project. It is crucial at this point that licensing is clearly stated, so that there are no surprises down the road.

4) Educating our peers. Part of my own personal mandate with this blog is to emphasize the importance of helping each other and giving back. Many photographers undersell themselves simply from a lack of industry knowledge and business sense in general. It is hard on the individual photographers, and it is hard on the industry as a whole, and in some cases does lead to a devaluation of intellectual property.

5) Stand your ground. Although we always need to be sure to go the extra mile for the client, it is crucial that intellectual property creators everywhere stand firm on their rights. Really, this is just a reiteration of point 4 regarding contracts and licensing. If you don't have a signed document, you often don't have a foot to stand on, thus opening the door to trouble and potentially a bad name. In a city like Calgary, marketing and advertising can be pretty competitive and word travels fast. Having a bad reputation can follow a company or individual around for years.

For some further reading on the subject, I certainly recommend that you visit a few of the following resources that have helped me with my own business development over the past few years:

Photoshelter - Perhaps the most valuable resource available to photographers to date. A great blog, hundreds of informative PDF's, and a powerful back end system for photo licensing and sales.

Chase Jarvis vs. K2 - A recent lawsuit involving a large, multinational corporation, and a commercial photographer. An excellent lesson in licensing and business, and an excellent precedent set by Chase.

Smashing Magazine - A fantastic resource for any freelancer, designer, or photographer. Plenty of articles and info relating to the business side of things, as well as more practical stuff.

Photo.net - A great forum and resource for photographers. The forum is a good place to ask questions, and the "learn" tab is home to hundreds of articles ranging from business to technique.

There are many more as well, feel free to post some other useful links in the comments.

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It's been a little quiet around the blog lately, however, this week we are super excited to be announcing a new member to the team, Chris King! Chris has joined our team as Creative Marketing Director and will be a huge support with client relations. Chris has a long history of experience in Calgary marketing and advertising and is excited to bring a long list of skills and friendships we are always excited to explore. Along with Lisa Coe (our Producer & Creative Director of Visual Design), we are extremely excited about the opportunities that are opening up for this year.

The Calgary marketing and advertising industry and climate has taken leaps and bounds over the last two years as companies have had to cut back, and explore more non-traditional avenues that have opened up through technological and social advances. We are very lucky to be moving forward right on the brink of the tide, and help move business forward both locally and abroad.

A few exciting projects we are working on this year include a photo journalistic focused trip for Compassion Canada to Peru this fall, as well as some exciting outdoor campaigns we are in the process of developing. The Peru trip will involve the production of media and either a photo or video documentary highlighting the poverty in Peru, and the need for western sponsors to step up to help support aid work throughout South America. More details are soon to come.

For more information on Compassion Canada, or to get involved with sponsoring a child, be sure to visit Compassion Canada. ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=248 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=248
Trackback: http://blog.photoshelter.com/mt-tb.cgi/1666...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=247 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=247
Drab boring day for a shoot? Run with it. It's far too easy to look outside and write off the whole day due to drab, boring landscape and light. Why fight it when you can run with it?

A great way to add some emotion to a drab scene is to inject a little positive energy (ie, light) to your subject, meanwhile bringing down the ambient just enough to create a moody/intense environment. A great example of this can be seen HERE (courtesy of strobist). Nick Turpin accomplished an excellent, moody effect by dropping the ambient a few stops, and building some specific, tight light around the subject to create a moody, emotional feel for the image. Another example would be using some big, powerful bare flashes at the Calgary Parkour photo shoot. It was drab, march, and adding some positive energy in the form of bare, focused flashes helped emphasize the feel of the environment, and add some major separation between the athletes and the environment.

A beauty dish, or small softbox will create a nice key light for your subject (close to background for intense shadow, far away for separation or to add some depth of field to your lighting. A snooted rim or two will help add even more separation, and act to increase the contrast between your subject and the background. Some snooted/focused light will also act to create some focus for your subject if you are looking to emphasize a certain feature or element to build a concept.

So, when the environment gets crummy, work with it... add some positive energy to your environment....]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=245 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=245
NOTE: All images are copyright © Jonathan Coe 2007-2010 and may only be used for personal use and not redistributed for any purpose

Valley of Ten Peaks, Alberta 2008



Download: 2048x1152, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1680x1050, ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=244 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=244 [jump]
Now, its not that Pike place is boring, or a waste of time... quite the contrary, it was a fantastic day out in the sun/rain/sun/rain/sun/rain cruising around downtown, taking in the sights and culture. However, I think it was around this time (and maybe partially because of this trip) that I began to finally understand what all the greats mean when they say that "the best pictures, the best ideas, are made and not taken". It occured to me later on in my journey as a 'creative' that my whole purpose for bringing my camera was in hopes of "finding" a cool image. Sure, great intentions, but no purpose and completely backwards logic. It's something so many photographers and creatives find themselves doing. Traveling the beaten path, looking to capture our own version of, well, the same thing everyone else has already captured 1000 times over (anyone have a picture of Lake Louise or the statue of liberty to prove my point?)

Now, there is certainly something to be said for being prepared to capture inspiring places, events, and shots of opportunity. This is, after all, a dynamic and ever changing world we live in. Case in point: Just yesterday I looked out my window to see a girl hula-hooping on the roof across from my office, in the snow, in full view of downtown. Had my camera, got the shot, awesome. But aside from those little gems we occasionally find, it is seldom (maybe never) that we just randomly stumble across the best opportunities, and as a photographer, the best images. Want to take award winning photos? Step off the beaten path. Find a new viewpoint, something no one has seen before. Maybe even just a new viewpoint on something we've all seen a million times. Vincent Laforet nailed this fundamental with this fantastic capture of the Chrysler Building in NYC.

Maybe it's time to actively seek out that concept or emotion you want to capture. This time, try creating an idea that hasn't been created before. Spend some serious time contemplating the concept or message behind your next image before you ever pick up the camera. Only with this fundamental principle as your anchor will you begin to find that elusive creativity that all of us are looking for.
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Although it's not likely to be an option for high end photography, I could certainly see myself picking up one or two in the future to add additional options and angles for sports and other film-making applications thanks to their feature-to-price ratio with regards to video. I can imagine this new offering will be offering similar quality to the 7D, although dual digic IV processors is probably a bit of a stretch, so 60fps will be an option we will have to wait and see on.

Source: Canon Rumours...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=240 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=240
The long awaited (Wait, didn't the h3d come out in 2008?) Hasselblad H4D-40/50 medium format digital camera. (check out the hasselblad page for pics and details). This one actually looks like it has some pretty cool features as well that may prove to be rather groundbreaking, at least in the medium format world. I'm expecting the H4D will be an interesting direct competitor to Lieca's S2, despite the difference in form factor.

The most notable feature built into the H4D body is the APL True Focus system, which seems to be a first of its kind in the industry. The H4D actually has a built in velocity sensor that measures minute movements as you recompose after focusing using the center-clustered focusing system. Pretty ingenious way to deal with focus plane issues on a medium format camera. Not sure how effective it will be on real world shoots, but I can imagine it would certainly help improve focusing accuracy and consistency for wide aperture / close in frames.

At $20,000+ I'm sure the price point will deter all but those with the most extreme resolution needs, or those who require the unique look and feel that medium format provides thanks to their massive sensors and unique physical properties. Based on pure resolution, the 5D Mark II at 21mp in conjunction with some of the excellent F1.2 L primes Canon produces should get you pretty close, at least with regards to resolution and depth of field. And at $2,800, the 5D Mk II is certainly hitting the resolution-for-dollar ratio a little better for those of us mere mortals that can't quite justify the astronomical price of a top of the line hasse setup. ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=239 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=239
I knew going into this shoot that I wanted to create an image with nicely muted tones, a slightly high-key feel, meanwhile still capturing nice contrast on Lauren's face and bring out her indie vibe and aesthetic. This meant overexposing the background roughly 2 stops to give me a high key, bright look. In addition I added a single strobe (580EXII) to add some separation and fill in her face. I also used an additional Vivitar 285HV to illuminate the tree in a few shots, and to create some separation as a rim/hair light.

The first image was actually grabbed on a whim as we were walking from one spot to another. The frosted grass created a perfect aesthetic for the image, nearly perfect lighting made for an easy 1/200, ISO 100, F8 shot. In this case, nearly perfect conditions were just dropped into my lap, and i nearly fell over after taking a few frames... the light was perfect, i couldn't have asked for better.

The next shot was grabbed near a pretty fantastic tree that we found nearby our first location. For this image I used a VAL (580EX w/ 60" shoot-through high and right) to create soft light for Lauren. The real kicker in this shot is the Vivitar 285HV located behind Lauren, fully zoomed out on 1/2 power illuminating the tree. Its hard to see, but comparing against a shot without the light, it's very easy to see how much this detail light adds to the shot. This particular shot was grabbed at 1/500, ISO 100 and F5.6 or so. I wanted a little less depth of field to create a little softness and a little natural vignette as well.... similar technique I used extensively during our Parkour Photography collaboration last year.[jump]



This works because I only need the shoot-through to fill her face, and i don't really care in this case if it illuminates her feet or not. A little pushed worked pretty well here. I was also shooting a little closer to par on this shot, nearly even with ambient aperture.

The last shot in the series is a little under... ambient dialed back around 1/2 a stop to create a 'neutral grey' background, almost a studio feel. The foggy skies creating a nearly seamless, perfectly even sky. Beautiful. One single, bare 580EX on 1/2 power high and right to create a pretty dramatic image.



All in all, perfect day. I can't imagine better conditions for creativity. Just goes to show that it's not what your given to work with, it's what you do with it. In this case, a little over, a little under, and a little pushing can yield some exceptional results. Post your comments in the blog! I love hearing your thoughts.

Lots more taken today, subscribe to the RSS feed to stay posted! ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=238 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=238
For those of you wondering, HTML5 is the sparkly new standard for the basic building block of the internet: HTML. Version 5 introduces the video tag, which finally allows embedding of video on any web page without the use of flash. Flash is great for a lot of things, however, it is still a plugin, and it still is a resource hog when it comes right down to it. Unfortunately, as with any new web-standard roll out, it takes a few months for the browsers to catch up. Currently Safari, Chrome, and Firefox to some extent already support HTML5 (mostly), IE is lagging behind (as usual), although something tells me that Microsoft will have to step up to the plate when it comes to internet explorer, or risk losing their steadily shrinking browser market share all together.[jump]

I think on some level Facebook has been a rather significant motivation for those age demographics who don't really know Firefox 3.2 from Netscape 2.0. As a web developer, for once i'm actually going to side with apple's strict, monopolistic thinking on this one. I can appreciate apple's software update for OSX . It is a very capable piece of software that helps keep everyone's browser up to date, thus making my job easier by ensuring that a greater portion of the general public has access to all the new trickle down features I want to build into my websites. This means that anyone who owns a mac is pretty much guaranteed to have the most recent version of Safari, and Firefox's own update tool does a great job of keeping itself up to date.

Maybe this time, amid all the griping and complaining emanating from both sides of the fence (myself included), apple actually got it right... once again, so far ahead of their time that no one really understands what they are doing. Quite literally, one generation from now (6 months to a year), we are no longer going to be watching videos using flash. HTML5 will finally be rolled out in all its glory, and anyone owning an ipad or iphone will already be well ahead of the curve thanks to apple's foresight.

Now, although I probably sound like I am blindly waving apple's flag, I'm not. I still think the iPad is flat out silly for now having USB ports, and for not using a more open operating system, however, when it comes to online video, I think we are all in for a big surprise... Once again, it is very likely that when everyone else comes around to HTML5 video implementation, apple will already be way out ahead, laughing their way to the bank. ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=235 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=235
Thomas Hawk posted an interesting story today that has some members of the strobist group up in arms on the Thomas Hawk Blog. Now, i'm always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but accidentally stealing pictures from flickr for your own portfolio? Honestly, i can't imagine the circumstances that would lead to this kind of "honest mistake". As a photographer, I am extremely aware of every image I have ever taken... or at least I can remember when, how, what, why when I see one of even my oldest images.

After the whole Fake Wolf story, I think we can all agree that even the most 'professional' photographers are capable of acts of dishonesty.

It's sad, however not really surprising, that plagiarism can exist in all forms, even at the highest level where one would think it's not really necessary.

Anyone really concerned about whether or not their images are online somewhere should really try TinEye... a handy reverse image search that seems to be pretty successful at finding images based on pixel mapping. So far, it only searches a small portion of the overall internet, but is certainly helpful for finding your images on flickr, photoshelter etc. ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=234 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=234
It would be nice to be able to say that I can take any location, put someone in front of it and make it look good, but we all know that statement is a little far to the left of reality. However, with a little light (and in this case, I mean one light) it is possible, with a little moving around and (gasp) trial and error (pretend you didn't hear that last part).
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Enter Calgary winter... cold, bleak, boring, dirty... sometimes I wish I could just take a nice picture of a sunset on the ocean with me everywhere I go to save me the hassle of trying to find something that doesn't look like dirt on top of snow on top of dirt. But we make do, and with a little scouting, my subject for the day (extremely blessed and talented recording artist and songwriter Michael Larson) and I were able to find a few locations downtown that were... well, not too bad.

And, with the biting cold (i'm really a bit of a pansy when it comes to shooting in winter), the one-light setup seemed a lot more appealing than 6 lights, stands, tweaking, messing etc. It is winter after all, its nice to save the big productions for summer or indoors. And sometimes, it's good not to fight a lost cause. Rather than try to make a dreary scene look bright and cheerful (especially with one light) it worked a lot better in this case to use that contrast of light and warm/cool tones to make the scene, well, drearier in effort to bring out even a little more emotion from the shot.

Overall, i think in this case... it actually worked pretty well. Goes to show that less is sometimes more, and when in doubt, one light is often all you really need. Be sure to swing by Mike's site and pick up his new album "October Hill".

...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=233 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=233
It has certainly never been a more exciting time to be involved in the fast paced world of photography. It seems we are on a slippery, exponential curve of technology... we can either ride it, or risk falling a long ways behind. Video has been kind of a mixed blessing for me. It is amazing as it opens the door to creating truly top-quality shorts, films, and tutorials. It is frustrating as it introduces a whole new realm of costs that are associated with film-making. ND filters, matte boxes, frames, custom tripods, steady-cams, video light systems, dollies, final cut... the list goes on. However, the floodgates of creativity have been opened, and I for one can't wait to see what indie short film-makers and extreme sports film companies start producing.

Canon recently announced an exciting new contest to help further awareness of what is actually possible with their modern VDSLR's. Personally, I am very excited to see what people are able to come up with for this contest. Marketing strategy or not, there are some big names on the judging panel, including now world-renowned photographer & director Vincent Laforet, among other directors of photography for great movies such as Titanic, and Terminator Salvation (which featured absolutely fantastic cinematography, despite it's lack of compelling storyline).

If you are in the US, and would like to win a 5DmkII or 7D, it is certainly worth checking out Beyond the Still for information on how to enter the contest.
...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=230 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=230 ...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=164 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=164
Please note we will be having our open house next Friday, January 29, 2010. If you can, we would love for you to stop by for free headshots & consultations, snacks, coffee/drinks, and a chance to win a big discount off either a photo shoot or a website project. Stay tuned for other exciting new announcements over the next few weeks!...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=129 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=129
Project DemoDownload the source
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This tutorial was written with the assumption that you have at least a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, Jquery, Javascript, and some basic PHP.

So without adeu, lets get started!

Typically, I try to keep support files separate which helps a great deal with larger sites and more complicated back-end structure. This little project would typically be created from 5 separate files, however for simplicity's sake, I will be creating it using only one file, with CSS, PHP, and Jquery all referenced internally.


STEP 1


First of all, lets build our basic page structure and create sections for all our code.



Pretty simple setup. PHP functions in the top, Jquery and CSS in the head. Now, lets set up our structure for the portfolio slider itself.



Here you can see we have the portfolio container, a 'conveyor' and two items that will be buttons to go forward and backwards through the portfolio.


STEP 2


Next, lets give these classes some styles.



Portfolio: the width & height will determine the size of the portfolio slider itself. I made it display:block, however positioning it absolutely will work just as well.

Conveyor: We need an indefinitely long container to hold the images on, so will use 99999px. Hopefully, you don't have enough images to fill this one!

The prev/next buttons are simply positioned absolutely within the box and centred using margins. I used padding, text-align and a background color to help them pop out a bit.



What you should see now is a simple little box with some buttons. Not much to look at yet, but we are getting there.


STEP 3


Now, lets add a quick, but endlessly usable PHP function to read out all the images and image attributes from any folder. Have a quick read through the code, it is all explained below.




This might seem a bit complicated, however its actually a VERY simple loop structure consisting of some very simple functions. The concept behind this function is that we want to get a nice compound array that consists of all the files and directories that it finds in the directory or folder we provide.

First, we accept a variable $DirectoryName, and check that it isn't empty. Then, as always, we define our arrays. In this case one array called $filelist which holds all the file data, and a variable $ii we set as 0 so we can loop through all the items we find.

Next, we want to run an awesome little function called glob(). This function returns an array containing the matched files/directories, an empty array if no file matched or returns false on error. Perfect. Depending on which type of file it finds (a directory, or a file), we run a foreach loop through the newly created array.

For the first loop, we get all the information for the files that are found.

First, we check to see if we can get the image size information as an array $imageinfo using the PHP getimagesize() function. If we can, we set the first two properties of the $filelist array (width and height) to the values returned by the getimagesize() function.

We set the 'name' attribute of our array to $item and use stripslashes to remove the first '/' that is returned by the glob function. Then we set the 'filesize' attribute using the filesize() function.

We want to have a way to determine if the array item is a file or a directory, so we set up an attribute called 'dir' and use '0' to show a file, and '1' to show a directory.

Lastly, we increment our $ii variable using ++.

We want to run the same basic foreach() loop for directories. We do this by adding in an if conditional using the is_dir() function to determine if the item is a directory or a file. If it is a directory, we run through the same kind of loop adding the name and directory attribute to the array.

Finally we return our $filelist array.


STEP 4


Now that we have our function defined, lets get all the images from a test folder.



Here, we first set up a new array $images and set its value as what is returned by our ReadDirectory() function we completed in the last step. We then set $ni to the value returned by count() on our new array.

Using our $ni variable for the number of items in our array, lets run a for() loop, and create a new image with the class “port-image” for each item. We set the source of the image to the directory plus the value of the 'name' attribute for our $images array.



Great! Now we should have all the images from our folder spit out into our conveyor.

However, if you make the portfolio element overflow:visible, you will notice the images are still acting like blocks, and starting a new line for each one. We will fix this in the next step using Jquery.


STEP 5


Almost Done! Now we just need to add a few lines of jquery to make the slider work properly.



First, lets set up our $(document).ready(); function. Those of you familiar with Jquery will be VERY familiar with this function. For those new to jquery, this function fires as soon as the page loads. In our case, we first set all the children of our conveyor element to float:left. This is a fix from the last step where all the images were still creating new lines.




Next, lets add two 'click' event functions, one for our previous/next buttons. We want to always set these event functions to return false, otherwise clicking on these anchors will jump the page to the top.



Next, lets do something when we click the 'previous' button. First we want to move the last image in the list to the beginning of the conveyor.
To do this, we first move the 'conveyor' element to the left 500px using:

$('.conveyor').css({ 'marginLeft' : '-500px' });

and then append the last image to the beginning of the slider using:

$('.conveyor').children(':last').prependTo('.conveyor');

Next we simply animate the conveyor back into place using:

$('.conveyor').animate({'marginLeft' : '0px'});

Simple!

Lastly, we want to do roughly the same function in reverse for the “next” button. The only difference here is that we set the css of the conveyor, and append the image in a callback function once the conveyor has animated.

And that's it! You can probably already see how with a couple extra lines of jquery, you could use the 'width' and 'height' array attributes to change the portfolio size based on the image size. You could also build a pretty simple back end that would allow you to add/remove images to the gallery as needed.

You can check out a demo above, or download the source files for this project. Thanks for reading! Please provide feedback as this is my first tutorial. Hope you enjoyed it!...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=125 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=125 Share > Sustain



Chase, one of the leaders in the creative industry, and a key influence on my personal design, posted a blog that got me thinking a bit today.

The post is sort of a rhetorical idea relating to the ability for us to create and share as never before. There was a time, not too long ago, when the only mediums for sharing creativity and media were strict forms of print and television. That has obviously all changed over the last 20 or so years... to the point where now we can create, share, and have others in turn recreate and share, all within a few hours.

more after the jump...

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What does this look like? As a photographer, take a photo... tweak it to your liking, upload it to flickr or twitpic, and publish via facebook or twitter.

Seems like a normal thing for the modern internet savvy creative person to do... the simplicity masks the utter enormity of it all.... The fact that Twitter and Facebook have become, in many ways, the new face of publishing.

That's it... self publishing. You have an audience (friends and contacts), you have a medium of delivery with WIDE acceptance, you have the tools available to produce extremely high quality media for unprecedented prices (Canon 5Dmk2, a lens, a tripod and Final Cut Express for Less than $4000).

So whats stopping us from using this new medium to it's fullest extent?

A very good question....]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=106 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=106
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It was also a great learning day... myself still a little fresh off the burner with model shooting, especially out of studio, and her a relatively newbie to modeling of any kind. But, in the end, the learning was all part of the adventure and the fun of the day.

Finding a location was probably one of the more difficult parts of the shoot. Without a real motive or product being showcased, we needed to choose a location that offered both shade and background interest. After driving around for a while, we settled on two locations.... the first being a parking lot behind some high-class condominiums on the waterfront, the second being uptown along a sidewalk overgrown with gorgeous trees, and offering some nice architecture to shoot with.

The first location was a no brainer lighting wise.... 48" shoot-through umbrella with the 580EX on full power blasting away @ F9 / ISO 100. I also chose 1/200 (max sync speed) to mash down the ambient light as much as possible. The result was a dramatically dark background, and a dramatically lit (one light up high) model. A bit edgy, tons of negative space on one side, and a full body profile to place the emphasis on the scale of the area.

Second location was a little tougher, but chose a slightly lower power setting (48" shoot-through / 580EX @ 1/2 power. I ended up shooting primarily at around F7.1 and ISO 100 with a shutter speed at 1/200 to darken the ambient.

Third, and final location was by far the most interesting and the most fun. By this time, it is starting to get very easy to create fantastic images being well into the swing of things. For this narrow divide between two houses, I chose the big 48" umbrella @ 1/2 power up high, yet as close as possible to the model's face without being in the composition. I also used a second flash this time on the ground facing the wall to create a nice highlight effect on both the wall, and the lower left portion of the model. This effect is easiest to see on the 4th picture above, a nice highlighted glow on the lower left side. I also dropped the shutter speed to 1/80 to try to boost the ambient just a little bit to create a softer image.

In the end, a fantastic day out, some great pictures with a good friend, and some great work for both my portfolio and her's. For all you photographers out there, if you know someone thinking about modeling, why not jump in and help them out with a little personal work. It's kind of like supporting your local indie music artist, but this time it's a different kind of artist.

To see some of Karlene's photography, check out some of her images on facebook


...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=104 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=104 » Run the Red Light homepage «

Had an excellent evening out last night with the boys from Run the Red Light (Vancouver, BC). Super talented, and good guys all around, again I was literally blown away by their live show. A combination of high energy, a perfectionist approach to the overall sound of the show, and a very impressive array of LED banks made for one of the best small-venue experiences you could probably experience.

Again it makes me wonder what is up with the music scene here in Calgary. To me, what should have been a completely packed venue was littered with maybe 50 people in total throughout the night. Everyone seemed to enjoy the show, however it was really a bit disheartening that our local music scene seems so shallow sometimes.

So that being said, i would certainly put it out there that if you love music, and have a few bucks to spare every couple weeks, get connected with the underground indie scene, and get out there to support western local artists. For my part, I will do my best to post upcoming shows on my blog/website for good local and regional artists in Calgary, and try to post pictures from the shows as well whenever I can get listed for photography.

Hope to see you out there!...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=103 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=103
If there's one thing i've learned over the last few months breaking out of a day job and into a freelance position, it's the simple fact that one of the best ways to get more work is to never turn down anything. Literally. Now, that doesn't mean that you take the long, convoluted, project that joe somebody wants to underpay you for... thats just a waste of valuable time.
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What I am talking about is two things: Personal work, and projects for people with influence. Personal work is a no brainer.... it might be helping your buddy shoot a skateboard video, or doing a photo series on a subject that means something to you personally. I have a variety of projects that I am currently working on that have helped me gain both exposure, and skill. The beauty of personal work is (as www.chasejarvis.com swears by) that you get a chance to shoot what you love, and what you want to shoot. Naturally, when you are doing work that you love, you are going to put heart and soul into it. This is the kind of work that you will want people to remember you for because it is the kind of work that you WANT to do. Honestly, visit chasejarvis.com for a much better writeup on this subject.

Doing 'charity' or opportunistic work for 'people of influence' is really the subject i want to put out there. I recently had an opportunity to do a quick photoshoot with a professional athlete who is also a good friend of mine. What started as a simple photo shoot ended up being a connection with a professional trainer looking for website work/photography, and the phone number and a handshake with the media relations manager with the team the fellow worked for.

Did i make any money on this project? No. But I wasn't intending to. It was simply a favor for a friend, that was returned without any effort on my friend's part. So, who is a person of influence? A person of influence is, quite simply, someone who you trust who isn't just abusing the opportunity for free work. Anyone with any ability to read people at all can tell the difference. A person of influence doesn't have to be famous, rich, popular.... a person of influence can be anyone at all...Influence is merely potential, because you never know who you might meet in the process. This is why I started this blog with the statement "never turn down anything". The value of such a project will never be realized until you do it.... simply by putting yourself out there. It's amazing how much potential work i've gotten simply by going out and doing simple projects for friends. Almost every time I step out my door i end up with a business card, or a phone number and a handshake for someone looking for a freelancer.

Have you ever done something for free that ultimately earned you another job? Did you discover some unforeseen influence that helped you gain exposure or a new project?...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=99 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=99
That being said, you can all expect to see some exciting new video projects here on my site very soon.

The firmware update will be available here: http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos5dmk2/firmware.html on June 02, 2009....]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=96 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=96
(chase, sorry in advance for direct ripping of some of the things you have said.... that being said, some stuff in this article is stuff I have learned from other professionals such as www.chasejarvis.com). Enjoy!

The question.....

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________________________________________

So just thinking, is a XXXX camera purely an amateur camera? Is there much room to grow or will I quickly outgrow it? What's the next step up in cameras? Honestly, I'd like to make this a side business for myself so if I'm going to invest XXX, I'd like to spend $ wisely and invest more if necessary. I'm sure I could spend a lot on cameras, but I'm just looking for a scale of sorts. Would I be better off purchasing a better camera if this is my objective?

________________________________________

Hey XXXXXXX,

This is actually a loaded question, and not one with a very easy answer, to be honest.

The short answer is that no, it's not purely an amateur camera by any stretch, but you are asking the wrong question. The longer answer is that starting a business in photography is a very costly, difficult and stressful venture, no matter which way you slice it. More than that, it is an incredibly serious time commitment that takes an enormous amount of passion, drive, and will to truly succeed at. Millions of nearly professional level cameras are bought by hopeful photographers each year, yet only a tiny percentage ever make even the most basic career out of it. An even tinier percentage of that tiny percentage actually get to the point of establishing a successful, continuous business out of it.

So, before I start, please know this is not to discourage anyone. Rather, i'm hoping to encourage people to progress who feel that this is something they truly want to pursue. If you find yourself inspired by my short intro here, then i would encourage you to do everything you can to pursue this, and i mean really pursue this.

So, Without further adieu, here is my personal take on the business of photography.

INTRO.... GENERALLY

Generally speaking, A rebel (xt, xti, whatever) will offer you the ability to control every aspect of the camera, just like a high end $8,000 - $30,000 camera will. It will also allow you to use any number of professional level addons that will enhance your ability to provide consistent results at a high level. Addons like lighting, high end (or top end) lenses, flashes, filters, battery grips, etc.

The limitation of the rebel for a photography business is not in the body itself, or it's photographic capabilities (its very capable in almost all respects), but rather your initial ability to get all the rest of the stuff that is also crucial to have before considering the prospect of starting a photography business.

However, gear is largely irrelevant for the beginner, as I will expand on next.

PASSION AND DRIVE
The two crucial building blocks.

Going back to your original question? No, the rebel will not limit your ability to progress as a photographer. Not in any way shape or form. Ultimately, gear means nothing if not for the ability to use it proficiently and consistently. The old saying is that a professional can take an award winning photo with a polaroid, while an amateur can't take a decent picture with a top end hasselblad. Not to say gear isn't important, but it is definitely LESS important than proficiency.

To get started, the rebel will allow you to learn almost everything there is to learn about photography, even dip pretty deep into the world of professional photography. Your ability to step out of "human view", and see the image before putting the camera to your eye will be your absolute, invaluable asset in any photography career you choose to pursue.

Ultimately, this ability stems from purely passion. Schooling is virtually useless for most (although not all) aspiring photographers. Almost all of the greatest photographers in history, and currently are NOT SCHOOLED. Yet I know all too many schooled photogs that are floundering, and looking at other careers. My advice is that if you are truly passionate enough to become a good, or great photographer, you will become that, and school will not help you get there, and in some cases, might even limit you by pigeon holing you before you even get into the real world of paid photography.

There are some truths that i've been taught that have really helped me succeed, and i'll try to share a few here....

1) No one becomes a great photographer on weekends or the occasional evening. To truly succeed with photography is to put every effort and spare moment into the pursuit.

2) The first step to becoming a photographer is to take pictures. Don't worry about equipment, just get out there and take as many pictures as you are physically able to!

3) Learn from the best.... Find the best photographers in the world, and soak up every last ounce of insight they have to offer. Spend hours reverse engineering their images, try to emulate what they are doing. Focus on the lighting, the angles, and the contrast between objects and light. Take their techniques and apply them as you develop your own personal style.

4) Develop a personal style! Spend time working on photography projects that YOU enjoy and love. Spend too much time taking pictures for other people, and your collection will be full of other people's pictures. Pursue personal work and style! This takes years, and only happens after you've mastered the art of photography.

5) Ignore the professionals, focus on the masters. Forget whatever you've heard from other professional photographers.... the old school of photo is largely dead, at least in the real world. There is NOTHING wrong with extensive post processing, high contrast lighting, and the advancing pursuit of digital photography technology. In today's world of shock and awe, it's largely the end result that matters, not so much what it took to get there.

6) Don't be afraid to share your secrets! Gone are the days of all the 'professionals' hiding out in their darkrooms acting like stuck up snobs, never sharing anything with up and coming photographers, or even each other (www.chasejarvis.com).

Teach everything you learn to everyone who asks, learn to ask everything from anyone who teaches

7) Pursue every online avenue there is. Become an internet addict... start a flickr site, read every single post ever written on Strobist.com, watch every video posted on timtadder.com, vincentlaforet.com, chasejarvis.com, find out who THEY learned from, and learn from those people too.

Pursue every positive and encouraging photo community you can find. Steer wide and clear of negative stuck-up cliques.

These are just a few keys to success in photography, if you can grab even a few of these, you'll go far, I promise!



TECHNICAL SKILLS

This will be a very short section.... Basically, read your camera manual front to back. Understand all the terminology (there are heaps of online learning articles on www.photo.net, avoid the discussion forums though! lots of jerks.). Understand what every control on your camera is for.

Master the RAW workflow, understand what RAW processing is and it's benefits (luminouslandscapes.com has lots of tutorials to help you out).

Understand Exposure. This is the single, number one most important aspect of photography. Bad exposure will break an image, good exposure can make it award winning. I won't go into detail here, but ultimately, understand exposure.

Don't focus on the 'manual camera modes' as the be-all-end-all of photography. All they are is different ways of attaining properly exposed images.

Now what is proper exposure some might ask? Proper exposure is allowing in as much light as necessary to convey the message you wished to create with your image. There is a 'textbook' perfect exposure, and while good for learning and stock images, it's not as valuable when considering photography an actual art form.

Remember, the camera is just a tool. Without knowledge, it's useless... just like a wrench without a mechanic, or a scalpel without a surgeon. The rebel is capable of almost anything you can imagine. Some of my favorite images of all time taken by myself and others were taken on a Rebel XT with a cheap lens.

That being said, as soon as you step into the professional world, or aspire to someday, you will probably soon realize the price of being in the business!

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO WITH THIS?

I guess the most important question becomes: What level do you want to pursue this on? Do you want to start offering services to strangers shooting weddings, events, portraits, etc.... or do you want to pursue it as an 'advanced' hobby, offering services to friends, maybe even friends of friends on a semi-part time basis?

Either option is equally respectable, but the former definitely requires a completely different mindset and a much more advanced skill set than the latter. As an advanced hobbyist charging small rates to friends and family, it is generally understood that expectations arn't too high, and there is some wiggle room when things don't go quite as planned (as is ALWAYS the case lol!).

BUSINESS END OF STUFF

As a professional service, offering a product or service to the general public, there is a very fine line that is crossed requiring a whole new approach. The obvious being legal, the less obvious being consistency. As soon as you start charging money, getting contracts signed, it is assumed that you will be creative enough to deliver consistent, hi...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=82 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=82
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...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=80 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=80
A little while back (thanks to tv.adobe.com), I was turned on to a fantastically powerful tool that adobe has created called Kuler. This simple little color web application is quite possibly one of the most powerful and useful tools available to any designer. So useful in fact, i leave a kuler window open in firefox almost all the time.The power is simply the fact that it allows those without a bachelors in color theory to find inspiring, and more importantly useful, color combinations for use in your design work.

Here are a few of my favorite elements of the program:

1) Create a color scheme from an image

Kuler allows you to upload an image, and then take the the dominant colors from that image to create a custom swatch. This can be great for branding, or even creating an entire website or graphic around a custom image or image set. You can also customize the types of colors that are pulled from the image... high contrast, low contrast, dark, light etc. Cool stuff.

2) Download swatch files and import them into photoshop

Once you've found a 5-color swatch you like, you can simply download the swatch and import it directly into your color panel in photoshop. Illustrator is even simpler, housing a proprietary toolbar that connects directly to kuler, and allows you to drag/drop your swatches without importing anything. There are also some various options for exporting different file formats out of the kuler website.

3) Log in and save your favorites.

See some color combinations you like? Create a Kuler profile and log in to save it. Then come back later and do some adjustments, or get reinspired.

4) Sharing.

Whats a website these days without a social networking aspect? Color freaks unite. Adobe has created the ultimate color networking tool. Upload your swatches, download others. Truly a fantastic way to share and find some awesome color combination's to use in your work. No one has a copyright on a color scheme (yet anyways). So in the meantime, share away!

Overall, Kuler is a fantastic site. Check it out if you haven't already. kuler.adobe.com


A great tutorial on the application here: www.psdtuts.com...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=69 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=69
...]]> http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=56 http://www.suiiterdesigns.com/blog.php?id=56
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The site I was working on contained a simple portfolio loader, similar to the one on my site. The code in question loaded some data (via ajax & jquery) using a function (loadshowcase) and then put the returned values of that function into an Array.

[code]

function loadShowcase(imgNumber) {
$( function() {

datastring = 'showcaseNum='+imgNumber;
InitString = $.ajax ({ // start ajax, get showcaseInformation
async: false,
type: "POST",
data: datastring,
url:"getshowcase.php"
}).responseText; // finished ajax request

InitArray = InitString.split("@");

CurrentShowcaseFolder = InitArray[0];

});

return InitArray;

}

showcaseInfo = loadShowcase(CurrentImage);

[/code]

See anything wrong? Well, Firefox didn't, and it worked flawlessly in FF3 and safari. All is well... at least until my friend calls me up and tells me that my website doesn't work... I ask which browser, he says IE. Of course my first response is cursing because I instantly forsee hours and hours (maybe days?) trying to figure out the exact problem. Basically, the information loaded by the ajax functions wasn't getting put into their respective elements, and our classic little ajax loader gif just sat there spinning.

But after a little bit of investigation (basically putting in alert("test"); everywhere possible until it stopped alerting me) i realized that the code wasn't stopping in the function (the ajax call was loading the data) but rather when i tried putting the data in the new array... Wait... new array? So where are we calling the New Array()?..... aha.

So scratch one for the good guys, but IE was actually right this time (I think). The code stopped because I tried putting the data into an array that hadn't been initiated yet.

The finished (working code) looks like this...

[code]

function loadShowcase(imgNumber) {
$( function() {

datastring = 'showcaseNum='+imgNumber;
InitString = $.ajax ({ // start ajax, get showcaseInformation
async: false,
type: "POST",
data: datastring,
url:"getshowcase.php"
}).responseText; // finished ajax request

InitArray = InitString.split("@");

CurrentShowcaseFolder = InitArray[0];

});

return InitArray;

}


var showcaseInfo = new Array();

showcaseInfo = loadShowcase(CurrentImage);

[/code]

and presto... everything loaded perfectly in Internet explorer. Obviously, I probably should have noticed right away that I simply hadn't initiated the new array yet... but since it worked, I obviously didn't bother questioning it.

So, in summary, what have we learned? Well, I think IE has it right here by being strict enough to force the initiation of an array before we can load any data into it. And in the future, i'll certainly be more careful to initiate all my arrays before using them. ...]]>