About Dustin Diaz / Dustin Diaz  

Hi, I'm Dustin, I work at Twitter... but first, a quote I like:

"The important decisions in photography are those concerned with the image itself: the reasons for taking it, and the way it looks. The Technology, of course, is vital, but the best it can do is to help realize ideas and perception."
~ Michael Freeman - The Photographers Eye



So....


It looks as though you stumbled upon my profile... but you want to see more! In that case, see my photography blog at The Strobist Den, and of course my 365 project website which features my photography much better than Flickr does.

ANYWAY

I am an Engineer at Twitter and professional photographer on the side.

For the technologically curious, here is "some" of my photography equipment

* Nikon D700 D3
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* Nikkor 50mm ƒ/1.4G
* Nikkor 85mm ƒ/1.4D
* Nikkor 14 - 24mm ƒ/2.8G
* Nikkor 24 - 70mm ƒ/2.8G
* Nikkor 200mm ƒ/2.0G VR
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* 3 × Nikon SB-900 Flash
* 1 × Nikon SB-600 Flash
* 5 × Pocket Wizard Plus ii's
* 2 × 45" Convertible Umbrellas
* 5 × 43" Silver Collapsible Reflective Umbrellas
* 2 × 43" Convertible Collapsible Umbrella
* 1 × 60" white satin umbrella
* 1 × 5' octabox
* 4 × 6' Portable Bogen Lightstands
* DIY grid spots, snoots, mini soft boxes, gels
* 1 × Jansport "Big Student" Backpack :)
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* Adobe Lightroom
* Adobe Photoshop
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* some other bajillion photo accessories not worth noting

I like to shoot normal jpeg, getting the photo "mostly right" the first time. My post-processing is marginally done with Adobe Lightroom. I don't find this to be a problem without starting with a raw file.

My personal favorites are featured in my
portfolio. Also, here is everything you might want to know about me and flickr.

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Okay, so now you know all that stuff. Here's what I think about a few other things.

Photography:
I subscribe to the mantra "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It's cheesy, but it's true. I love photos, and I love taking photographs.

Gear:
One should not obsess over gear. If you feel your camera, or your lenses, or your lights are holding you back... then it might be time for an upgrade. But if you think you'll take better pictures solely based on owning more crap.... good luck with that.

My suggestion is to try new styles, read more books, make more mistakes. A true photographer will evolve. Copy your heroes. Be better! And most of all, share!

Flickr Comments:
Don't put huge glittery awards and logos in my comments. I will delete them. That is all.

Comments part deux
If you drop by, I'll do my best to acknowledge it.... but I don't always get back to everyone.

On another note, my recommendation for all of you: Unjoin those hundreds of groups, and make some actual Flickr friends :)

Bokeh
Pronounced "bo • kay" OR "bo • kuh"
Rather than guessing what it *could* mean, just brief yourself on wikipedia's definition of bokeh. It derived directly from the Japanese word for fuzzy / blurred (boke ぼけ). In short, bokeh is the areas in a photo that are rendered out of focus. The 'shallower' your depth is, the silkier your bokeh becomes. Depth is altered by three factors. Aperture, zoom, and distance (from camera to object). Rather than explaining this year, there's a handy depth of field tutorial worth learnin'.

Strobist
A strobist is a photographer who uses small speedlights off camera in clever ways. I find this challenging and fun. See my strobist info set if you're interested in learning some of my techniques.
If you really want to dive in, visit the strobist website, and get your hands dirty.

Me on style
I'm not going to try and convince you that I have a photographic "style" — it will change tomorrow anyway. I'm not going to tell you that "I love to shoot with natural or available light," because honestly I love flash photography a la strobist style too. So as they say, "your lights are always available."

Jon Stewart
Did you know he's only 5'7" — I know, right!

Nikon vs. Canon vs. Brand X
First off, I'm clearly a Nikon user, but anyone who thinks one is better than the other is dumb.

So, in preschool terms, imagine a bowl of jelly beans, each filled with 100 of them. One has more red ones than the other, but the other has more blue ones. One invented the pink jelly bean, but the other made pink ones better, and yet the another one replaced their pink ones with yellow ones. Every camera has a few of those black jelly beans (yuck). In the end, they all have 100 jelly beans... you just need to pick the right combination that works for you.


cheers,
Dustin Diaz

I'm Male and Taken.

Dustin Diaz Photography
San Francisco, USA