Today’s inspiration is Heath Korvola. This specific photographer is an amazing adventure action photographer. Heath’s images always seem to make me feel like I am right there in the action. His set that I enjoy the most is the “first descents” set. A great collection of a whitewater kayakers life as they go down the river.

Here we are nearing the end of the month and I go way off topic with this one and choose a conductor?! What am I thinking!! But you have to understand that this man is one of the best thinkers when it comes to inspiring and teaching others about your craft. Getting them excited about the passion that you have. Here is a quick video of this crazy man, explaining what he does.

One of the hundreds of people that joined at the Open House and went down the Screamer (our zipline).

News:

1. Let us start this week with some productivity solutions for those photographers out there that enjoy context specific visual recognition then my friend David has written a great little post for you! He goes through how you can create icons that look specific for a context.
2. Recently on the Photoshop Insider there was a guest post from Matt Kloskowski. In the post he touched on his dreams for the next version of Photoshop CS4. It was an extremely detailed post that everyone should read: HERE.
3. For all those who love to be productive and use a mac, you probably already know of and use OmniFocus. Well they just announced that there is going to be a native iPhone and iPod Touch application coming out when the app store opens up. This will now allow users of these devices to edit, add, delete, etc. items on their OF list in the field, this is HUGE!

I have to break posting an inspiration today. Between bringing my laptop back to running order, receiving a wonderfully painful head cold and getting ready for camp in five days…I have to pass.

I recently came across this photographer while exploring the Nat. Geo. magazine website. Mark Thiessen shot an incredible article on the wildfires that ravaged a large portion of California over the past year. His images of this area are so incredibly, risky, dangerous and insanely cool that I couldn’t pass up bringing him onto my list.

He shot for six weeks straight in some of the most hellish environments on earth. His images capture scenes of complete devestation and utter ruin. You can feel the heat, if you stare at them long enough.

Advance Crew is nearing it’s end today and we took a bit of time two days ago to relax and take a tour around Victoria.

News:

1. If you like to listen to podcasts and you like photography then here is a list of podcasts you should be listening to:
   • This Week in Photography
   • Photoshop User TV
   • Tips from the Top Floor
   • Radiant Vista
2. I have been a long time reader and huge fan of the “What the Duck” comic series. Aaron Johnson is the best photography comic around. You need to check out the strip HERE.
3. If you liked the last pictures of the new Phoenix lander, they just released some new ones that are absolutely spectacular! Check them out HERE.

I came across this photographer close to two years ago. Ace Kvale has an extremely inspiration element to his photography. He gets close and intimate with his subjects, you can tell he interacts with them and their culture. 

Interaction, a word and action that many photographers don’t use and do enough of. Ace can teach us much about what can be accomplished when we as photographers become intimate with our subject(s).

What can a month of inspiration go by without the mention of James Nachtwey. There is little to say about this man, he’s rather shy, soft spoken, but he fills his images with his heart break for those around him. He describes himself as a “witness” and his photography is the testimony of events that he believes shouldn’t be forgotten.

He was also a TED winner in 2007, here is a video of him describing his TED wish.

Once again we’re going to feature an underwater photographer. David Doubilet has an incredible selection of images of creatures most people never want to encounter underwater, for example: crocodiles. He seems to get so close and personal with these animals that makes myself even feel uncomfortable sitting here looking at them. 

Once again, I’ll put out a call on photographers that you find inspirational. Drop a comment.

Today we are featuring the amazing U.N. photographer, John Isaac. This man has travelled to over 100 countries and captured so many of the people in those countries. He is featured on Lexar’s Pro Photographer Corner and has some great articles for the aspiring photographer.

How could any list of inspirational photographers go without mentioning the master himself, Ansel Adams. There are few people who have affected the world of photography quite like this man has. His devotion, philosophy and techniques have opened the eyes of many people. How many photographers spend their life in one specific area just perfecting how to shoot one spot? Adams has taught us that we must live and breath our context in order to capture it.

The count down is on, and my goodness is it speeding up. We now are down to only 8 days left of Advance Crew before all our staff arrive, then only one more week after that till our summer starts. At the moment I am up to my eye balls in work to be done before Staff Training. Every year I want to expand the position into new areas.

This specific year we are expanding into web galleries on the Qwanoes website, combined with selling Daily Review books and possibly prints. Seems simple enough, right? Well it’s definitely a lot more then you can imagine. There is a lot of behind the sences coding and workflow that needs to be worked out, not to mention the fact that it has to get past by the head honchu here. I will post a link here for you all to see the weekly galleries that will be going up on the qwanoes.ca website.

What is going to help these new additions is the addition of an assistant. I can now, finally pass off things that I have no time for. I just have to figure out what I don’t have time for, and pass them off.

Back to work.

A while ago I posted a a link to the Media Storm about how they are started to revolutionize the way media and reporting is being presented online. They have been a huge inspiration to myself in how I believe I will go in the direction of my own photography and the presentation of it.

They have been featured on Washington Post’s website and in the photo gallery section. Possibly some of the best and most powerful media presentations I have seen in a long long time.

Today’s inspiration is an amazing man that has a gift for photographing indigenous people groups. There are very few photographers in this world that have the ability to be respected and understood by people groups who have rare interaction with outsiders, Randy Olson is one of the photogs that receives their trust.

This post was rather inspired by the recent images shot by the Brazilian Government of the recent tribe found in the Amazon forest.

Finishing up the shoot for a special project that I’ve been doing at Qwanoes. This time I had Lewis jump into the ocean, the 13C ocean.

News

1. If you are ever looking for a special icon to use for your website or design work, ICONlook.com has an amazing collection of resources. Easily searchable by keyword tag.
2. There has been a great article written on color management of photos and why your images may look terrible on the internet. Pixsylated is an incredible website filled with lots of great articles on photography and the like.
3. If you’re a Mac lover, like myself, you’ll not want to miss the news that is going to be coming out at WWDC this coming Monday (June 9th). There is a lot of speculation including 3G iPhones, New MBP designs, and more. You can watch the live “type-a-thons” on Engadget, Gizmodo and Macworld.