In this new age of digital photography, it is sometimes nice to revert to a good solid film to record certain events. Even though I predominantly use professional digital cameras, there are certain subjects that just seem to require traditional film. I find that nature photography is better suited to slide film, wildlife photography (in certain cases) works best with professional color film, and in the case of the above photo, Asian martial arts work well with B&W film.

There are two brands of Black and White film that I have always loved; Kodak T-Max P3200 (ISO 3200) and Fujifilm Neopan 1600. Both films are very high contrast, grainy (but in a good way), and wonderfully fast for low-light and quick moving situations. If you are used to hand-holding your camera using a 400 speed film, you will really enjoy the added shutter speeds afforded by these higher speed films.

Subject matter consideration is very important when using these films. These films are better suited to mysterious subject matter, and portraits of models who have soul. Photojournalists often used these films in the past, and they are well suited to many forms of social documentary work.

These Kendo fighters were photographed in Nagano, Japan.

Thanks to professional photographer Mark Hemmings (www.markhemmings.com) for writing this photo tip.

It hasn't been a white winter thus far for the Jalbum office.  A couple of days of snow in mid November which disappeared as quickly as it came.  My brother's mother-in-law will be visiting us from Namibia for the holidays and it looks like her dream of seeing and touching snow for the first time will be crushed.  For those of you more fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your point of view), don't forget to share your snow photos with us so I can show my brother's mother-in-law what it's supposed to look like.

Even Baton Rouge, LA has seen snow this year and here's the proof:

Jalbum by gr8ridejester

Jalbum has been free since 2002. Thanks to the tremendous support from the community we are able to keep it that way. Your contributions help us improve Jalbum and keep it free for everyone! Now when you sign in before donating you will get a heart badge next to your profile picture, showing everyone that you are a Jalbum supporter. Here are a few users who already got their heart, thank you guys!

These are just a few of you who contributed so far, thank you to all contributers! Did you already donate and want a heart? Contact me, and I'll get you a heart :)

Link to donate page (remember to sign in first)

A few weeks ago Carl gave you a preview of our new help center with a tutorial video showing a noob how to make their first Jalbum.  Well, we're happy to announce that we've now launched an all new help center with a new FAQ and five new tutorials to help anyone get started making their first album and adding widgets.

Already a pro?  Why not try making your very own skin?  All of our skins are developed by the awesome Jalbum community.  In fact, we liked Laza's work on the Chameleon skin so much that we hired him full time as our lead graphic designer!  Want to get started making your own skin?  Check out this guide and keep in mind that our friendly community is ready to help out if you get stuck.

Our friends over at Polar Rose have made a major update to their Name Tagger Widget. They have made it a lot easier to tag people in albums by matching faces, which means that you can tag one person who appears in many photos in one go! Sounds pretty neat huh? Well, here's how it works:

1) Go to one of your Jalbums that you have added the Name Tagger Widget to
2) Wait until a green bar appears in the Name Tagger saying "Name the people appearing in these photos". Click it.

You are now directed to Polarrose.com to do the actual name tagging. The result will be displayed in your own Jalbum afterwards.

3) Name the person appearing and the picture and 'process'
4) If the Name Tagger has found any matches in your album they should appear now. If they are correct click "proceed". If there are wrong matches in there, click these individually. A red crossing means that they will not be named.
5) Repeat this 'til the Name Tagger has no further suggestions.
6) In the following step you can manually merge together pictures by clicking multiple faces of the same person and click merge on top of any of the selected faces.
7) When done click 'process'
8) In the final step you name the groups individually remaining in your album. When finished click 'done'.

Returning to your Jalbum the Name Tagger will display your content telling you and your visitors how many people were found in your Jalbum, how many of them are named and how many that are un-named. The top 5 people will appear as thumbnails in the expanded Widget as well. There's also a search option to search for tagged people on the Polar Rose site.

 Check out how the Name Tagger Widget looks like in real life

Thanks for the kudos Chris!

Since we released Jalbum 8.1 and Widgets a couple of days ago, it's been exciting to see all new and old users trying out Widgets. Being able to build converstions around images and give feedback have been on top of the Jalbum wish-list for a lot of us. As always it's great to see the diversity of albums being shared on Jalbum.net:

Jalbum by hugocromano

This Jalbum by strangeste proves that having the best equipment isn't always necessary to make it interesting. These photos are taken with a simple mobile phone. 

Jalbum by: strangeste

Here's a company called "Happy socks" which provide fashionable socks. They use Jalbum widgets to get feeback on their products - the socks! It seems like a great way to get to know what the customers think of different models. Check them out, they are pretty funky :)

Jalbum by: socks 

We have been running Jalbum 8.1 in beta mode for quite some time now to test the new Jalbum Widgets. Finally we are ready to officially launch this baby!

With the release of Jalbum Widgets, you can for the first time incorporate face detection and tagging, build conversations around images, monitor popularity and enable any viewer to spread the word. And best of all, Jalbum Widgets work on any site!

The Widgets we launch today are:

Comments – add context to your Jalbums or individual photos and invite to dialogue with your visitors!

Visitor Counts -  simple tracking counter to determine the popularity of individual images. Build understanding of your audience’s interests.

About – displays more information about the album and the yourself. It also allows for easy browsing between your albums.

Sharing - allowing Facebook, Myspace, Digg and other social interaction site sharing in a simple and intuitive way.

Name Tagger – award-winning Polar Rose Name Tagger Widget lets you sort, search, and share albums based on who appear in the photos.

We hope you'll like these new gadgets as much as we do :)

So, what are you waiting for? Download Jalbum 8.1 and try out Widgets now!