photography Archives

October 10, 2018

We got hacked and here’s what we learned.

Due to my human rights activism, there are enough people out there who don’t like me to warrant paying attention.

So whether it was a bot looking to use server resources or a genuinely malicious act, our sites were brought to their knees during the launch of our new Harvest presets for Lightroom i can’t say. While the site is up, secured and the ship is tighter than ever, this has been a long week. I thought I’d share a few things I learned because I know a lot of you have sites of your own and anyone could experience this.

We have a VPS server from Known Host and we’ve spent the last two days trying to sort things out. After we restored from a backup and changed every possible password we thought all was well. It wasn’t. The next morning we were down all over again. The problem is web hosting companies are not staffed with programmers and while a good one will try to help, they tend to put a lot on your shoulders, even in a managed server environment.

Here are some key points I took away from this week.

We did NOT lose anyone’s financial data.
This is something we did prepare for. Our front-end site never sees payment info. You add products to the cart from our site but the transaction happens in a separate and secure DPD payment server that has nothing to do with the files on our site. Wow, was I glad this week that we kept that separation and it’s something I’d recommend to anyone else who sells online.

BACKUPS:
Most sites have PHP data and many people have an option to back that up. But that’s only the text of your content. All the files are on the server and you need to take the time to log into your web hosting Cpanel or call your host and make sure the server is keeping a complete backup. Many are not and you should not assume you are secure. I not only keep a complete server backup automated weekly but I also download the entire thing now and then and keep a local copy so that even if my hosting company was compromised I could restore the last saved version to a new server.

PASSWORDS:
We hear this a lot, but in the era of content management sites like WordPress, there’s a lock of hackers looking for an easy mark. Keep a good password or everything from your dashboard to your FTP and know who has admin access to your site.

UPDATE:
Likely the reason we lost control this week was because of an old WordPress install or plugin that had not been updated. If you use a totally managed system like Wix or Squarespace you probably don’t need to deal with this much. But if you like control over your sites and use things like WP, outdated software will leave you open. The fallout of this event (not to mention the techs at my hosting company) reminded me this week that that is a big deal.

Add-On Domains:
These phrases might not mean much if you have one site or if you are not a bit of a nerd. But if you have your own server space or account with a C panel you can probably make add-on domains having as many sites as you want within that account. I rent a VPS server which means I can have add-on domains but also make as many accounts as I like and even resell accounts to others, similar to what you might buy on common hosting providers for $10/mo ( I don’t sell hosting myself, however.)

The long and short is that if you have more than one domain in a user account that old site you barely touch anymore will mean everything is compromised. One of the big changes we made this week was to move every site into it’s own hosting (user) account. Each user account is like a sandbox and it means that even if the site in that user account gets compromised it cannot affect the sites in other user accounts on the same server. Has this been in place before, seimeffects.com probably would not have gone down. Now every site is in it’s own walled garden.

I hope what we learned this week helps save you from a frustrating mess down the road. In the meantime, our sites seem to be working well again and the new Harvest presets are as beautiful as ever.

July 26, 2018

f164, Fine Art, Gavin Seim

Camping in Mexico, a Photographers Paradise.

Jungle Camping with a trailer with my wife and 5 kids in Jalpan de Serra, Mexico.

This is not what they told me!

Is this paradise of natural beauty, friendly people, amazing food and street photography? Or is this a place where cartels sell me to the highest bidder? I’ve been in Mexico for months and I’ve camped in beaches, at resorts, in parking lots and gravel pits. What I learned is that if you want to expand your photography and your sense of adventure, Mexico might be the best road trip you’ve taken yet. Be ready to bring a home amazing photos of incredible places you probably never knew existed.

We’ve spent hundreds of days camping in the last 5 years. But the USA is less than half of America. So now we’re in Mexico, past the border town and beautiful deserts that many think Mexico is made entirely of. We’ve towed our RV all over Mexico with our van and met many amazing people. On the coast, we found beautiful warm beaches in near peaceful fishing towns. Speaking of fishing towns, Yavaro is about 10 minutes from this spot and as you come into town there a little restaurant on the right with the most AMAZING shrimp platter you have ever had for about 5 bucks.

Heading inland we discovered everything from Jungles to mountains to water parks filled by hot springs. We found climates that are friendly year around and culture that is just as warm to our large family. I’ve heard lots of terrible things about Mexico while seeing them downplay the terrible things happening in my own country. What I did not hear, is what Mexico is really like.

El Trampoline, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 21.953459, -99.392477. There is camping 50 feet from where I took this photo.

We’ve traveled to about 10 States, including some of the ones our government says NEVER visit. Obviously, you should be careful, but that goes for the USA as well (here’s looking at you Chicago). I learned that propaganda is controlling us too much. Mexico is an amazing country with great people and a lot of freedom. In the USA there’s always a park ranger to harass us, or someone to bully for holding a camera. In Mexico, you just do your thing. If you are respectful, they are respectful. There are also far fewer rules in just about every area of life. Meaning if you can find an empty place, you can probably camp there.

If you’re uncertain about safety, find a campground or use an app like iOverlander for suggestions of safe places to stop.

But the violence Gavin? This is what we from the USA hear every freaking day. Less so if you live in other countries. Yes, there problems. But most of what you see about Mexico is propaganda meant to keep you in fear. Don’t join a cartel and you’re not likely to have trouble. In fact, us gringos are LESS likely to be murdered in Mexico than in the USA. Use your head just like you would boondocking it of the US.

The photo at the top might be a good starting trip. There’s beach access here at coordinates: 26.69624 -109.60719. We got stuck trying to camp on the landward side of these dunes and some locals helped us out. Super nice people for the 4×4 club. They suggested camping on the seaside and interior side has scorpions. If you want a little more security about 200 yards up the beach is the Hotel Miarador Campground. That’s where this photo was taken. Though we also boon-docked on the beach with no problems.

A new country with a new culture and a different language takes some getting used to. But what does not take long is realizing what a beautiful place this is to visit. You might even decide to stay.

Gavin Seim

Here we are in Playa Huatabampito in Sonora Mexico with our 4×4 converted Express van and a Tepui RTT.

The van’s tuned Duramax will also tow our beast of an RV up the mountain pass at 70MPH

Street photography in Real de Catorce Mexico.

I hired some models for a photo shoot in central Mexico. More about that in this post.

June 29, 2018

special effects

How to NOT lose all your photos – Video

Have you ever lost photos? Maybe from a drive crash, or maybe because your drives are such a hot mess you have no idea where anything is.

In this months Photo School we talk about not only having a good backup in place for your photos but how to organize your files, folders and data to stay sane. For lots more videos sub our YouTube Channel.

January 7, 2018

inspire, special effects, tips, workshop

My #1 Secret to Killer Composition!

How can something simple be so hard?

Just use the rule of thirds or put the subject far to one section of the frame and your composition will be cool. Right?

No. The problem is that most photographers are taught to focus on only a third of composition. It’s the same problem we have in tone and we tried to take a dent out of the problem on the EXposed Master Class. But today let’s talk about the other side of the coin. Composition is simple and it’s also hard, but once you discover the keys it comes in a rush.

Too often photography education has become scattered bits of inspiration from celebrity photographers. Enthusiastic and mostly well intentioned entrepreneurs who at conferences and in magazines are often rated, not by mastery of craft, but by tax returns. Marketing is very important. But it is not photography and I love photography.

Next to tone, composition is what separates a masterpiece from a picture. The Photo Perfect master class was dedicated largely to composition for good reason and I’m planning to dedicate more to demystifying the subject in the coming years. There’s more powerful written works on composition for painters than photographers and I recommended studying them. One of my favorites is the simple but incredibly insightful Composition by Eyewitness Art.

The Composition Triangle:

We know in our photographer souls that composition is not simply where you place something in a square. We see the legendary photographers, painters and sculptors holding deeper knowledge. But maybe we forget sometimes what made them masters of space, position and line. I call it the Composition Triangle and it’s inspired by my mentorship under the late Ken Whitmire, the Ansel of the portrait. That triangle surrounds the tonal center, the core of the image. But today we’ll focus on the triangle itself.

This is not a math class and it’s not as simple as a formula. We have to learn to see, something we took a look at in my recent video talking about the frame stop. If you didn’t see that watch it here. We also dig deeper into the topic in the latest Photo Kit pack.

All the images in today’s post won awards because these elements were combined with some competence. With the concept of the Composition Triangle I hope to show the idea that when we are aware of something and remember to apply it we will quickly begin to master it.

If we don’t think about what’s happening in our frame before we release the shutter, we’re not applying the Composition Triangle and we’re missing part of the image. The more we visualize the more instinctual this becomes and we begin to apply it easily when moving and shooting at a fast pace. SPACE, POSITION and LINE make up the triangle. Compare that to the rule of thirds class we all get in photo workshops which only addresses position and ignores all the rest. When we combine them all and we start to truly examine our frame and everything changes.

I’ll close with my #1 TIP!

This is what you came for but I hope the rest made you think….

Let your gear hold your frame. Use your tripod! I know you get sick of hearing this but there’s a reason you see me with a tripod so much. I listened to those pesky voices that told me that very thing years ago and it made me the student of the composition I needed to be to earn my masters.

But I’m saying take it further. Don’t just throw up a tripod. Use it to hold your camera while you engage with your scene in a deeper way. Every time I set a camera on the head, look into the scene and think about every part of it, I learn more. You can and will apply those skills when you need to handhold, but expanding how I see is centered around a stationary camera, not a moving one.

If you doubt my words go try for yourself. Find a great scene, setup your tripod and take a solid 10 or 20 minutes looking at the frame and setting up your shot. The first time I did this it seemed like such a long time to take on one frame. It didn’t take long for me to realize it had changed everything about how I see and it will do the same for you if you give it a chance.

I’ve gone back to my early blogging roots in this little essay and I hope you’ll let me know how you feel about this and don’t be afraid to jump into the Triangle!

— Gavin Seim

December 31, 2017

inspire, video

Mastering the Frame Stop!

I’m here in the jungles of epic central Mexico near Tamasopo and there’s line and light everywhere.

I filmed this video to share my experience about where the frame begins and ends because it’s critically important to getting perfect composition. We’ll talk more about this location and it’s lines in the Dec Photo Kit and you can get the first month free here. In the meantime watch this and let me know how you judge your frame stop. — Gav

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