I’m a Photographer…

‘I’m a Photographer’: those are the words that conjure up an image in the reader’s mind making them think, “he’s a Professional”, but that’s not always the case.

To me, we’re all photographers, every one of us, whether we’re using the most expensive all bells and whistles camera, or the cheapest mobile phone: we’re all photographers.

Why do I say that? Well, we all have the dream of taking the most amazing images, those that will stand the test of time and leave future generations in a place of wonderment, but I don’t consider myself a professional because of that.

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Can The iPad Replace Your Mac For Photo Editing?

Being an old geezer, I’m a little set in my ways and can be a little resistant to new fangled apps and software. It’s not that I don’t like technology or the latest toys and software, I’m a Mac user after all, but when it comes to my photography work, I’ve always been in the Mac and OS X/macOS universe, so when it was suggested that the iPad could some day be my main photography editing device, I’d have laughed at you… but not any more.

I’ve listened to podcasts for a long time and on many, professional photographers have said that the iPad would never be a viable device to produce professional work on but… yes, it’s that ‘but’ word… maybe it could.

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iOS 11… The Future

I’ve been using the iOS 11 public beta’s for some time now and I’ve had mixed feelings about the way iOS 11 works… some features are really useful, and others are not, some are really intuitive and some are… not.

Some nice features that I have been discovering, such as the drag and drop multiple items feature, has been really useful, but due to them being so different, I keep forgetting about them. One of those was the multi drop feature, which this morning I remembered about when I decided to rearrange my apps due to storage issues. I’ve been finding that iOS 11 (Public Beta 8) has some annoying ways of working. Whether this is meant to happen when space is at a premium, or just an annoying bug I don’t know, but we will see when the full version finally arrives later this month.

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Audio Hijack Pro Podcast Editing

How I record and edit the Essential Apple Podcast

Several listeners have asked me about how we record and edit The Essential Apple Podcast. I decided to give a bit of an overview of how I go about the process. Part of this article is based on a piece I posted on Medium in reply to another article on how to record a podcast.

There are dozens of different recording and editing applications available from the very basic to the extremely complex, (like Adobe Audition or AVID Pro Tools, for example) and there is no “right way” to do any of this. As is so often the case, you can choose from many paths and all of them have their own challenges – but in the the end they all take you to the same destination.

I use a Macintosh and all of my links are for the Mac or iOS platform. Some of the programs are cross platform, others are not. However I am sure a similar quantity of applications is available for both Windows, Linux or Android users.

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Studio Envy

Yesterday in New York Microsoft showed the world what they have been working on recently and, in all honesty, I was not expecting much. However, as the presentation entered its final stages they revealed the Surface Studio all-in-one PC and instantly grabbed my attention.

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Rumours and Rumours and Rumours, Oh My!

With only a few weeks remaining until Apple reveals the new hardware it has been working on the tech press is naturally filled with rumours. The audio jack will be removed, dual cameras, OLED screen bars and countless other supposed rumours and hearsay that ‘people familiar with the matter’ or ‘unnamed sources’ seem more than willing to share.

Now I realise that these sites have to meet their daily post quotas and usually any attention grabbing headline with the word Apple in it is bound to generate some interest, be it positive or negative, but things appear to be getting out of hand this cycle.

There have not only been the usual rumours but now it seems a fresh cry has joined the chorus. That being that this year’s iPhone will be so lacklustre in new features that you’ll most probably be better off waiting until 2017 before upgrading.

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Apple Getting Serious About SIRI?

In a recent article published on iMore, Rene Richie makes a very valid point regarding the recent comparisons between SIRI and Amazon’s Alexa. The tech press does seem to have a massive love for Alexa from Amazon without ever seeming to quantify the slight issue that if you are outside the borders of the United States of America then ‘Hey Alexa’ gets you “diddly squat”.

I know that most tech publications are US-centric but I have even started noticing a few UK publications gleefully lamenting the fact that SIRI can’t compete with Alexa when it comes to digital assistants… if you omit the rather tiny issue of it not being available that is. Yes Alexa is soooooo much better, I mean it must be, it’s not made by Apple so QED better, right? If we had ever had the opportunity to try it I’m sure it would be better…

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