Most of the time when you hear talk about photography you hear it called an art, or a craft, but I wonder why so few people ever see it for what it really is, “a gift.” The gift of a talent to see, and then to be able to capture that vision with a camera. There are those who use their gifts to give back something whenever and wherever they can, and there are those who just take what they are given as if it were owed to them.

Photo storage management is a topic that comes up often. I have participated in numerous discussions on this topic on many photographer community sites. Regardless of what photo management software you use to edit, catalog and manage your photographs and videos, you need a good strategy for physically storing and preserving these valuable digital assets. I am a OS X and Apple Aperture user so you will see references to Aperture Libraries. This process works exactly the same for Lightroom Catalogs so Lightroom users on OS X should feel equally comfortable with this solution. Windows users too should have no problem finding tools for disk drive synchronization so this solution should apply equally to Windows as well as OS X users. While photo storage management is only a part of the larger subject of Digital Asset Management, it is of such importance that it deserves dedicated attention. In this article I share my method for photo storage management.

I use multiple online portfolio sites to market and license my photographs: Photo Shelter, 500px.com, and TravelPhotographers.net to name a few. Apple Aperture's organizational tools and custom metadata fields make it easy to select and organize an online portfolio, and to track which online sites are marketing which images, all within Aperture. The benefits are that I make my selections and organize my images only once, inside Aperture, that I have consistent organization between my online portfolios, and that I can quickly find which images are being marketed where. Once I make my selections and organize my images inside Aperture, I replicate that structure on my online portfolio sites and populate them with my selected images.

For most of the people, visiting somewhere else will feel like just that, a place that is not your home. Sometimes people have so much to do, so much to engage with and so much to take that they often forget that they are in someone else’s home. Therefore, travel photography allows you to engage with people who call that place their home, get understanding of the country and establish connections with people who you would have never had the pleasure of meeting.

Harry Fisch's photograph Preparing the Prayers at the Ganges was chosen as the winner of the Places category for the 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest.

The picture was later disqualified as the organisation considered that the digital removal of a bag on the right side of the frame was in direct violation of the contest rules. In the words of the National Geographic Senior Photo Editor, Monica C. Corocoran: "..it is unfortunate you did not crop the bag out or just leave it in, as it really had no impact either way. But digitally removing anything from a photo is in direct violation of the contest and we must follow our own rules... "

Harry Fisch designs and leads Photographic Expeditions to different countries in Asia, Africa,South America with his firm Nomad Photo Xpedition.

As I have been traveling frequently over the past two+ years since I have lived in Singapore, I have had the chance to photograph many distinctive places in Asia. I have always been a fan of wildlife and landscape travel photography, but one of the subjects that I have been shooting more and more of lately are the amazingly unique people and cultures. The diversity of these natives in this part of the world is truly amazing and taking their portraits is becoming a major part of my travel portfolio. I have had others ask me how I am fortunate enough to capture these shots, thus, I thought I would take the time to jot down some of my techniques and experiences.

Learn everything you need to know about Lightroom from this fast-paced 2-hour presentation by Adobe Design Master and Lightroom Expert, Martin Perhiniak.

With so many companies offering a wide selection of workshops, tours and safaris worldwide, choosing the best photography adventure can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Not all websites are well-indexed by search engines, so that great opportunities may be overlooked. We have put together a set of twelve guidelines that will make this process easier, faster, and more efficient for you.