Ok, a little tooting of the horn. I am allowed to do that once in a while since, hey, this is my blog, right?

I am so excited to share with you the news that I was recently interviewed by WeddingSutra, the premier wedding planning portal for South Asians living around the world.

The interview gives you some idea of my personal approach to documenting Indian and multi-ethnic weddings. Check it out now!

According to Rob Galbraith, Nikon has revamped their site. On a Macintosh using the Firefox browser, it looks like shit ok. Check it out and if you want to vent, you can do so here, on Nikon's new blog called Your Shot.

Adobe's Photoshop is or should be on your computer if you are a photographer. Sure, you could use other image editing programs that may just do it for you, but after I bought Photoshop CS3, there simply was no turning back.

But Photoshop by itself isn't going to get you too far if you don't use the program's ability to automate through programmable actions what you need to do to enhance all your images. You could, if time is your friend, sit and figure out all the actions you will need or outsource that work and buy the actions from people who simply do a great job.

Doug and Chenin Boutwell are a husband-wife wedding, portrait (and now even commercial) photography team who has produced a pack of actions they call Totally Rad (the name is perhaps a nod to where they live in Orange County). I bought their actions early on and simply couldn't do without them. What's particularly important to me is that their actions creates a separate layer above the image you are working on. Accessing this layer allows one much greater access to tweak it to one's own liking. That is, while some actions flatten your file and you have to just accept what is given to you, Doug and Chenin's Totally Rad Actions give you the freedom to make your images look like your own creation, not someone else's interpretation.

Doug has recently launched a series of online video tutorials on how to best exploit his actions. Here are the first three:

Action Basics – Mix & Match Actions – Layers and Layer Masks

Would it help to buy the action pack as you follow along? Sure. Do I get anything for mentioning the actions here? Nope.

Here is Doug's blog where you can learn more.

Brrrrr … it's not the Winter that's getting cold and ugly. It's politics as usual. Barack, Tiffinbox has got your back brother.

Pixish is a place for photographers and publishers to meet. It is another Derek Powazek production (remember JPG Magazine?)

I tooled around this site and made things look a little pretty. If you are reading this blog through a RSS feed reader, you are unlikely to see the sheer beauty of it all [said tongue-in-cheek]. I have thought about having a designer completely revamp this site, but that takes bucks. Got some to spare? I am going to continue tweaking the lists (especially the long ones) so that they are presented to you in a more elegant fashion. My goal here is to have my audience view this page quickly. Even on a fast connection, I sometimes feel I am viewing this site on a dial-up. Ugh!

So, keep coming back and comment here about your experience with this site. What works, what is useful, what is sheer crap. I am all ears. It's time for, um, CHANGE*.

*This post inspired by Sen. Barack Obama.

Oh, yeah, come and check out the “new” site.

“The MediaStorm Multimedia Workshops are intensive, hands-on educational experiences in advanced multimedia storytelling.”

Go apply … yourself!

I shot a wedding in California and have posted images here and here. Both are on my wedding and portrait blog, Saffron. Check it out. I'll be posting at least four more posts with a ton more images to view in the days to come. So, bookmark the site – http://www.seshu.net – and visit the blog!

Place a comment under either of those two posts and your name will be entered to win a CD by the Veena virtuoso, Dr. Krishna Raghavendra called “Rare Pulse.”

This post is part link love and part real love for what Justine Ungaro has brought me in terms of her knowledge about the portrait photography business over the course of the last few months. I belong to an online forum for professional wedding photographers and Justine has made a name for herself as one the most successful portrait photographers on the planet. That's really no exaggeration. She freely shares information and is clearly a wonderful teacher. I remember reading about some of her marketing materials and requesting that she send me just one sample for me to check out. Three days later I received a packet from her containing all of her samples. Woah! How cool is that?

And so, she is taking her skills on the road. Justine and her mom Diana, also a terrific photographer, are conducting a workshop in DC called “The Modern Portrait.” The associated blog is located here.

“We are not going to try to teach you how to be a photographer or how to be a better photographer. You can learn that anywhere. We are going to give you the tools and the knowledge to sell more of what you are already creating, how to price yourself for a higher sale , how to present your images for maximum impact and how to keep your clients coming back for more.”

Music to my ears. I would love to go. I want to win the scholarship Justine is offering. It's as simple as that. So, please do me a favor and click on this link (all 389 of you!) to send her some link love. Valentine's Day is around the corner isn't it?

SEO isn't an overnight thing. Want to rank higher in the search engines? Big Folio is behind the site called Rank Higher. Cost for the CD is $79. The ROI could be huge depending on your approach to Search Engine Optimization for your Flash-based site and how much time and patience you have. [Full disclosure – I get zilch for mentioning their sites or product]