Category Archives: Photography

Photographer Interviews at Shoti.es

Introducing Shoti.es, a little side project I started last month. I love photography and I’m always wondering how photographers capture their photos: tips, tricks, planning, gear, post processing, etc. Shoti.es is an effort to scratch that itch. I like reading the stories, and hope it can give others the inspiration it gives me.

Local Myth Pizza

I had a lot of fun redesigning LocalMythPizza.com for some good friends of mine. Their restaurant is a bit quirky, and we wanted the design to match. And since restaurant websites are notorious for bad user experience, I wanted it to be as simple as possible and hit them right away with the information they need: menus, […]

Snowflake Photos Round Two

After trying my hand at macro snowflake photos yesterday, I was able to make another attempt when it started snowing this morning. Here are a couple results from round two. I decided to over-saturate the colors just because I liked the look: I’ll be adding more photos to my Macro set on Flickr over the […]

First Attempt at Snowflake Photos

After reading Alexey Kljatov’s snowflake photo technique article I decided to give it a try myself. A few thoughts on this first attempt: It seems highly dependent on the quality of the flakes that are falling. At this level of magnification, what seems like a small shift in distance quickly amounts to shooting at 0.5X instead of […]

The J.B. Camera Designs Olympus OM-D E-M5 Grip

It took about three weeks to receive the J.B. Camera Designs Olympus OM-D E-M5 grip after ordering on Amazon, but there’s a good reason – they’re hand made one at a time, in what’s obviously a careful and purposeful process. The packing and personal note was a nice touch as well. A penny is even included […]

Olympus 25mm f1.8 Lens Amateur Review

I’ve been using the Olympus 17mm f1.8 as my standard lens for almost a year now, but after sorting through my favorite photos in Lightroom, I found it to be fairly absent. Sure, I’ve taken some photos I love with it, but I didn’t always like how close I had to get to fill the […]

Hello World!

Yes, this is the first post at ryansommers.com. I’m just testing out the design, fixing miscellaneous bugs, and generally playing around. I’ve always had intentions to start a blog, but told myself I never had the time. Of course that’s bullshit; you make time for the things that are important to you. I’m not really […]