Baffled by all the new cameras coming out these days?

 Me, too. But I'm finding this online guide to be pretty damn useful:

• Photokina: An Easy-to-Follow Guide on the Latest in Cameras! (And then some) | Photojojo

The science of brand journalism

Brand journalism tells stories. And that, Fast Company reports on its blog, is a powerful strategy:

Stories affect us on both on an incredibly deep intellectual and emotional level that we are just beginning to understand.

That quest began when scientists discovered that fictional stories affected the same region of the brain that reacts when we ourselves are engaged in real-life drama. Stories create a bonding empathy which causes us to strongly identify with the made-up protagonist, as if we were, in fact, that person. In other words, stories have such impact because our brains actually get a little mixed up as to what’s real and what’s not. ...

Scientists have also determined why stories are so important to our intellectual activity: Our brains use them to process different strands of information and make sense of it all. It’s no secret that our early ancestors created elaborate stories about various mythological gods to explain various natural phenomena they couldn’t understand. Frankly, all of us are always after an explanation for why things are the way they are.

Video: How to build a swivel adaptor for the GoPro Hero 2

From Randy Werner's YouTube channel:

Three things you can do now to make your site more mobile friendly

From David Meerman Scott at Web Ink Now:

1. Make sure your site is mobile compliant. You need the pages to load properly in mobile devices.
2. Create a mobile sitemap so the search engines can index your pages for mobile browsers.
3. Use few words and small graphics. People don't read much on mobiles and they want the data to come quickly.

Journalists are using Instagram; so can publicists

From John Paul Titlow at Read Write Web:

Instagram is more about branding and engagement than eyeballs and dollars. After some campaign trail experimentation, the Associated Press is encouraging its staff photographers to use their personal Instagram feeds in a professional capacity. Meanwhile, well known media outlets like NPR and the Wall Street Journal maintain official accounts that share photos highlighting major news events.

The better choice for driving video? Facebook or Twitter?

Chris Johnson at Brightcove has a strong opinion. He says the winner is Facebook, largely due to its built-in video player and its ability to embed the video into a newsfeed when shared. See what you think. Does his argument hold water? Is there a choice better than Facebook ... perhaps YouTube, Google+ or Vimeo?

• Beet.TV: Facebook Beats Twitter in Driving Video Views, Brightcove's Chris Johnston

Apps: You may build one, but will anyone notice?

Apps can offer an exciting opportunity to publicize your client with highly targeted audiences. Unfortunately, they can be very expensive to create. And, as many companies are finding out, just publishing an app is not guarantee that anyone will notice. In this post,  Ouriel Ohayon from Appsfire explains why the app market is tougher than you may imagine and how you can succeed against the odds.:

•  So you’ve created an app; now why hasn’t anyone discovered it? — Tech News and Analysis

What's possible with just an iPhone camera? Here's work by 10 of the best iPhotographers

From Misho Baranovic at Digital Photography School:

The iPhone has revolutionised the ability to shoot, edit and share your photographs on one device. For many photographers, both amateur and professional, this integrated process has given them the freedom to experiment both within and across photographic styles.

To show you what’s possible with the iPhone, we’ve put together a showcase of talented photographers who use the iPhone as part of their photographic process. The photographers are from all corners of the world and span different styles including: landscape, portraiture (self and street), nature and wildlife, architecture, travel, street photography (colour and black and white), conceptual and documentary.

By the way: If you haven't read Misho's new "iPhone Photography eBook," get it now. Worth every dime, and more.

Storytelling: How 1 and 1 makes 3 -- a lesson from Ken Burns

From video journalist Adam Westbrook: 

(Documentary filmmaker Ken) Burns has a difficult job: make stories from the past compelling on screen. It’s tough because your characters are dead and the action you want to film has long since happened. You are left with interviews with historians, still photographs and empty buildings. As a former historian myself it’s a genre I’ve long thought needs a fresh approach – but I’ve been looking at it in the wrong way.

Watch this short film (itself superbly produced by Tom Mason and Sarah Klein) and you’ll see the Ken Burns approach isn’t so concerned with what we see. For him it’s all about crafting a compelling story.

The Mobile Publicist is now on Facebook

Find me at Facebook.com/MobilePublicist .

A down-and-dirty approach to time-lapse photography

Time-lapse photography can provide a very cool change of pace for your videos. In this presentation, Chris Jarvis demonstrates four time-lapse set-ups featuring a Nikon D3S, a Nikon D7000, and two GoPro Hero2s. The results are intriguing:



Instead of shooting a landscape, imagine using the same technique to capture time-lapse of a demonstration, or a process, or even an office in motion. There's a lot you can do with this technique.

Of course, there's more to this technique than just capturing the images. If you are working with a DSLR, here's a good place to start: http://www.lightstalking.com/timelapse

If you are working with a GoPro, start here: http://www.all-things-photography.com/gopro-hd-hero-time-lapse.html

There are plenty of other sources online, some for free, some for pay.

7 secrets of street photography -- and why you should learn them

For the mobile publicist, practicing the art of street photography offers at least two advantages. One, it's endlessly fascinating. Two, the techniques you hone are useful when shooting photos at corporate events. It helps you get beyond the grip and grin, and allows you to produce photos that are far more engaging.

From Selena Walker at PictureCorrect:

The secret to taking great street photography is a combination of technique, emotion and a little bit of patience. If you follow the secrets below you’ll be on your way to creating inspirational images:

• Street Photography: 7 Steps to Success

3 ways to create a YouTube page that grabs attention

From the Content Strategist blog:

According to company statistics, there are more than 800 million unique visits to YouTube with 4 billions hours of video are watched each month. A whopping 72 hours of video are uploaded onto the site every minute — that’s a lot of competition.

With so much content available, owners of YouTube pages need to make sure that they give people a reason to visit.

Here are some tips on how to make a YouTube page attractive and worthy of people’s attention.

How to tell a story like a photojournalist

From the Phoblographer:

Photojournalism is the process of documenting the happenings of life on camera through photography. These days, it tends to extend into videography but the main elements of the practice still hold their roots in still image capture. Photojournalism can still be a tough job as far as getting work and images that are different than other photojournalists but that is still a story that would hold an audience captive.

There are many factors that go into photojournalism. Many of them are ethically related and others are just how the industry works. But to tell a good story there are certain shots that are essential.

Simple tip: Make it easier edit images on your iPhone

From the Life In LoFi blog:

When using your iPhone everyday, many of us have the device’s Auto-Brightness turned on to help the screen compensate for optimal viewing under the varied lighting situations we find ourselves in all the time. This works great for most uses but the variances in iPhone screen brightness can really mess with image editing.

Here’s a tip I’ve been using for years to help get better results when trying to do more precise photo edits on my iPhone: Try editing your images with the Auto-Brightness turned off.