A friend of mine sent me a video from the WSJ called “Don’t Forget to Pack a Photographer” (link to the video, link to the article). Seems like there is a new trend in higher-end markets, where people are hiring professional photographers to photograph their vacations. It is certainly an interesting concept that could create potentially good business for us photographers (if priced right and done right).
(Photo by Helene Havard)
There are plenty of things we like about our work. We love writing. Every single thought we put out here, we love taking our time and writing it down for you to read. We love coming up with ideas to keep you interested – is it a workshop being planned, a Camera Selection guide, another review, a Lightroom tutorial or a giveaway contest, we love seeing how you appreciate and compliment our work. We also love every single hit we get on our articles, and even more so – every single comment, which we answer all, too, whenever there’s enough time for it, and we still try our best when there isn’t. We love how you address us by name – it makes our writer-reader relationship seem much more personal and close than it otherwise would, and we also love seeing our regular readers appreciate every single new article we add. It’s always so good to see you visit!
More? We love seeing you express your opinion. Our opinions – those of Lola, Nasim, Bob, Tom and me – vary very often, and it’s a good thing, but even better is the fact our readers have their own and are willing to share. We love seeing you discuss with us and among yourselves, politely, with an open mind and heart. We love seeing your work whenever you share your portfolio’s and ask us what we think. We think you’re great, dear reader, and often nothing short of amazing, and are very grateful for every time that you visit us.
But then, that’s us. That’s why we – the five of us – like the whole Mansurovs website, which you are a huge part of. Some of you are beginners, others – working professionals, but you’re all different and important. There are plenty of other review sites and photography blogs, many of which are very, very good. What, then, in your opinion, makes Mansurovs.com special? Why do you read us? What else do you think we can do to make this website even better for you and what would you like us to focus on more in the near future?
It has been unusually stormy this summer so far in Denver. After all the mega hail storms, nasty winds and lots of rain, we are now experiencing very hot temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. And with the lack of snow in snow peaks this year, storms and high winds sparked up wildfires in various places, destroying forests and people’s homes. So far, it has been one of the worst seasons for Colorado – wildfire near Fort Collins alone has already consumed close to 60 thousand acres of woodland. Overall, it is a pretty sad situation for us Coloradans…
This terrible weather and sudden changes in temperatures are creating unusually beautiful skies… I captured the above image a couple of weeks ago, right after we experienced golf-size hail in some areas of Colorado.
Captured with the Canon 24mm f/1.4L on the Canon 5D Mark III. Lightroom 4 adjustments: Clarity +50, Saturation +15, Camera Standard profile.
Today we are announcing the lucky winner of the Nikon D3200 Giveaway that we hosted all of last month. We had an incredible number of entries – a whopping 1648 candidates, but unfortunately, only one of them gets to win the camera. I use a random number generator by random.org for these kinds of giveaways, so it picks one number for me between 1 and the total number of entries (1648 in this case).
Mansurovs and B&H are giving away a Nikon D3200 DSLR camera kit with the Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G Lens in a Facebook contest to one lucky person. The giveaway is open for everyone and we will ship the camera worldwide to the winner (some restrictions apply, see below). This is done to promote our Facebook pages and to increase the number of Facebook followers.
1) “Like” the Photography Life Facebook Page:
Yesterday’s Nikon vs Canon vs Fuji in a studio post was a fun one. We have received close to 100 responses from our readers (with the Facebook fan page combined), most of whom gave a wrong answer! Well, granted the game was totally random and there was just no way to tell for sure which one is which. Except for the Fuji, I think, which I kind of gave away a little talking about its great skin colors.
We had a total of 6 readers that gave the right answer and I had to pick one random winner among the six – the person will receive the Westcott 43″ Collapsible Umbrella Flash Kit with Stand, a great off-camera flash photography kit!
So, which image was shot with which camera? Here is the answer:
I decided to post a couple of iPad 3 (a.k.a. the “New iPad” or just “the iPad”) wallpapers taken by the Nikon D800 while I am working on the upcoming Nikon 85mm f/1.8G lens review. I am hoping to publish it within the next few days, so that I could start working on reviewing the Canon 5D Mark III and some high-end Canon lenses. These images were requested by our readers in higher resolution and since the new iPad has a whopping 2048×1536 pixel retina display, I thought it would be better to extract them in a bigger size. They should also work as wallpapers for the original iPad and iPad 2, but obviously the images are not going to be as detailed…
1) Click here to download the wallpaper version in 2048×1536 resolution
During the last 3 weeks, you might have already seen their great articles, you may have already exchanged comments with them or even visited their websites and portfolios. Today, I would like to officially welcome our new team members that will be contributing to the growth and success of our site. From the day we became “The Mansurovs” back in 2009 and since we started posting photography-related content, our site has grown from nothing to over 1.5 million monthly visitors today. While we are excited about this kind of rapid growth, Lola and I realized that we want to take the website to a whole new level and make it a much bigger and friendlier place for photographers of all levels. We also realized that it would be impossible to do all this by ourselves, so we invited a couple of our friends and readers to become a part of the Mansurovs team. Please welcome Bob Vishneski, Tom Redd and Romanas Naryškin!
UPDATE: We have received an overwhelming number of applications for this position and we are no longer accepting new submissions.
We are looking for creative writers to contribute content to our blog and help expand our reach. If you like what we do and you would like to be a part of our growing website, please contact us as soon as possible. The opportunity is for 100% remote work, so you can do everything from home at your own pace and schedule. No need to send your resume/CV, as long as you meet the below requirements:
If you are interested in this unique opportunity, please use the form in the “contact us” page with the subject line “Mansurovs Job Opening”. Please include a short bio of yourself, a link to your online portfolio (if you have it) and whatever else you feel like sharing with us :)
Update: We have had some issues with our contact form. If you were not able to contact us, please try again. If you still have issues, then please send us an email to info[ at ]mansurovs.com (replace [ at ] with the @ sign).
B&H Photo Video had a bug in their system last night when they opened up Nikon D800 and Nikon D800E pre-orders, where they were charging shipping fees for the placed orders. I have just gotten confirmation that B&H will NOT charge any shipping fees for all pre-orders.
If you have already placed and order and your order shows a shipping charge, please call B&H Sales at the following number: 1-800-606-6969, option 4 (or use the contact form on this page) and ask them to remove the shipping charges from your order – they will honor it.
DO NOT CANCEL AND REPLACE YOUR ORDER! If you do that, you will lose your place in the queue. Remember, B&H will ship the D800/D800E using their order queue. I know B&H and other retailers are selling the Nikon D800 like crazy, so do not lose your spot or you risk being in a waiting list for months.
This should save you additional $10-50 USD :)
