Why aren’t we paying $1.00 for first class mail?

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The price of mail is ungodly inexpensive. 

46 Cents.

Think about that for a minute. Someone takes your piece of first class mail from your door, and can deliver it to another door thousands of miles away for 46 cents.

No wonder the post office is broke.

First class postage should be immediately increased to $1.00, which would still be a massive bargain. With the ending of Saturday delivery, that would almost immediately put the post office in the black and make it a profitable going concern.

Back in my home country of Jamaica, we only had door to door delivery in the most populous cities and towns. In smaller villages (like where I lived), we all made the daily or twice weekly trek to the post office.

Heck even at my current home here in the first world, all my mail gets delivered to a mailbox a couple miles away. The only thing that the letter carrier delivers here is junk mail.

It was great to go the post office in my youth, and its great to go to the mailbox now. I get to know the people running the joint, chat with the regulars and meet some spiffy new friends too.

In fact, the post office would save a TON of money not delivering to every single door in the United States. They could receive and sign for our packages from Amazon. More local post offices would be a great thing for each community.

Let’s get real people. I doubt that Benjamin Franklin thought the service he created should be run at a loss.

Manual camera controls for iPhone 5?

The closest we’ll come i guess is with Camera Pro.

There are a few things stopping this from happening:

FIXED APERTURE - This is set at f2.4. That’s pretty wide open. The limitations of the packaging prevent aperture changes.

ISO - This is also automated.

INTENDED AUDIENCE - Lets face it. Hundreds of millions of people use the iPhone. 99.99999% of customers don’t know (and don’t care) about manual settings. And that’s fine by me too.

Two apps bring you close: Camera+ and Snapseed.

So what can you do with the default app to make your photos better?

1. Tap to Focus.

This alone will make a big difference, especially when taking close up’s or a scene where you want to focus on one thing in the composition. Just tap the screen and try not to move the camera around, as this will again change the focus point. If you want to lock it in hold the focus point until it pulses.

2. Don’t use the built in flash!!!

This is probably the thing that make your photos look bad more than anything else. Instead go for other artificial or natural lighting. Move around until the light is behind you and shining on the subject.

3. Compose and hold, then release.

Reduce the ability to shake. First compose your shot, then hold down the camera button. When your hand is steady enough, release the button, then it will take the shot. Pretty nifty.

4. Use the volume up button as a shutter release

This is sometimes more natural to do than trying to press the on-screen button.

In a future post, i’ll talk about some more things you can do with the iPhone’s camera to give you better shots.

Photo-Journalists that make news with photography

Photo-journalists are generally highly under-appreciated.

Some of the most beautiful photography can be observed on your local paper’s website. Of these the large papers have some really awesome examples of lighting, composition and just sheer beauty itself.

Here are a few of my recent favorites just browsing the internets today.

CNN - Down and out in the south

Feature Dutch photographer Jan Banning. The whole series is just an unbelievable set of portraits that are a study in lighting. Banning manages to wonderfully humanize his subjects. So much so that you envy them being asked to pose for this master.

NYTIMES - Weapons of the Syrian Rebels

This series of they Syrian Rebels and their rag-tag group helped to make them a cause-celebre. Photographer Bryan Denton has, again, done a marvelous job with the available lighting, making stark concrete walls look like the best sponge painted walls in a Miami mansion. And turns the shell casing into an objet d’art.

Dave Weatherwax/The Herald

Dave Weatherwax certainly has the eye for capturing those moments. You know the moments that a single glance tells you exactly what happens, why it did and how the people experiencing it feel. 

Yes, some of your local papers might just suck at photography. And in a sense, they do want to capture something (anything) for the news. We’ve all seen the gaggle of photographers with blinding strobes facing forward.

But those same photographers can get on a mission and these are some of the results.

Recently I had big problems shooting some products. (Hint, I’ve never done it before). So with egg on my face after two attempts, I sat down and watched around a hundred videos on Youtube.

My problem was purely not getting a completely white background, everything else was fine.

The solution was simple… Just have a few more stops of direct light on the background. This can be solved with an overhead light that is stronger in the background than the foreground.

You could use a shield above the product itself to reduce the light falling on the foreground.

Importantly, you can light behind the background as well, to get even more light there.

And as the video shows, to eliminate the shadows, you can put some clear glass under the product and light the shooting table below it.

I can’t believe it was that easy. Still slapping my forehead. As a student photographer you learn something every day.