Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-08-27. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-08-20. (read more »)

Hello, everyone. Lytro’s SXSW 2012 panel pages are online for public voting. Please help us get our panels selected for next year’s conference! To vote, login to (or create) your SXSW account (free—easy to register), and then click on the thumbs up button at each of the following panel pages:

• Building Active Photography Communities (Eric Cheng)
• Mapping Out the Future of Photography (Ren Ng)
• Beyond the Buzz: Maintaining Momentum Post-Launch (Kira Wampler)
• Turning PhD Concepts into Cocktail Conversations (Kira Wampler)
• The Creative Class in High Tech (Victoria Hoyle)
• The Customer Is (Mostly) Never Wrong (Chris Macomber)
• Legal Dos and Don’ts From a Startup Veteran (Mariana Antcheva)
• Giving Your Product a Passport (Kristen Berman)
• Form v. Function: Rethinking Conventional Product (Dave Evans)

Thank you!

Those of you who follow me on social media know that I complain often about the work required to keep my data securely and reliably backed up. Since 1997, I’ve been a hardcore Crashplan user. I love that it features continuous, versioned backups to multiple destinations, and that it supports multiple platforms. You can backup any Mac, Windows or Linux machine to virtually any destination (folder, second computer, or cloud).

I continue to recommend Crashplan over Time Machine for normal users; for a very-small monthy subscription fee, you can back up every machine in your family to an external drive, and to the cloud—a fast, local backup plus a secure offsite backup, all in one solution.

Unfortunately, I am not a typical user. I have about 10 terabytes of data that I need to keep easily accessible and securely backed up. About half of that are static image files, which are stored on a redundant NAS volume and backed up offsite, which leaves the other half—about 5 TB—needing to be actively backed up. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-08-13. (read more »)

I was in Monterey earlier this week and took a Lytro shot of Joe Platko with a tiny little lizard on his hand. Immediately after, Jason Bradley took a shot with his iPhone. Here are the two shots.

Joe Platko with lizard (photo: Jason Bradley)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-08-06. (read more »)

My contact page is a little scary. The message is basically, “Don’t email me if you haven’t done your own research, and don’t ask for free pictures if you don’t ask the right way.”

Many photographers get really angry when they are asked for free pictures, but I do not. Instead, I evaluate each request, and decide based on the information the requestor gives me. I received an email from Todd S. the other day for a request to use a sperm whale picture on a new website for the Cape Lookout Studies Program in North Carolina. It’s the PERFECT request—it gave me enough information to be able to quickly decide whether or not I was interested in donating a picture (I was, and I did). Thank you, Todd!

I may use Todd’s email as a template for a new “free image license request form” of some kind.

Thanks for your willingness to offer usage of photography for free to non-profits (under the right circumstances). I’m hoping my request qualifies! I am a designer building a new website for the Cape Lookout Studies Program in North Carolina ( http://www.capelookoutstudies.org ). I am interested in using one of your images on the website.

1. image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/echeng/4315292806/

2. The image will be used on a page dedicated to a recent project of the program. They have rearticulated a sperm whale skeleton (now hanging in the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort, NC). I want to use the photo in a slideshow/animation to be featured on the page. The animation will fade from your image, to the image of the skeleton shot at the same angle as your whale image.

3. Size of the image will be roughly 900×500 pixels.

4. The image will not be used in any print materials!

5. There’s not quite enough funding in the program to cover all the website work that’s needed. They haven’t updated the site in over 10 years! They do great work to encourage conservation, educate the public, help whales as part of the NC marine mammal stranding network, and they work to prevent injury to marine animals by creating and sustaining North Carolina’s Fishing Line Recycling Program. All good stuff!

I work with photographers on many commercial projects and understand the work, dedication, and artistry that goes in to a great shot. Photography has real value and I appreciate your willingness to entertain my request.

Todd S., designer