While installing Adobe Air applications I came across a wonderful and excellent software planning tool specifically designed to help landscape photographers make the most out of their outdoor photography adventures. App designer and photographer Steven Trainor brings us The Photographer’s Ephemeris.
What exactly is an “ephemeris”?
Simply put, it’s a table or almanac that displays the position of heavenly bodies (sun and moon) for a given date. The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE for short) includes position data for the sun and the moon, the time when both rise and set, as well as a graphical depiction of where they are in the sky at any time of the day. Plus, its all centered around a Google Maps interface, so the data and display adjusts to the latitude and longitude of any location on the planet.
Planning an adventure to Lake Tahoe next summer to do some hiking and photography? Or maybe Paris, or Australia? No problem… by knowing exactly where the sun will be at any time of the day, TPE can help you plan your photography trip down to the minute.
And star-gazers rejoice! TPE makes it super easy to find a moonless night (January 14th, 2010 looks good). Plus one really cool feature shows the Astronomical twilight range on any given day. That is the period of time where less bright deep sky objects like nebulae and galaxies may not be visible. So TPE helps you plan your astronomy and astro-photography adventures, too.
Steven has all the installation instructions and a nice set of tutorials over at the main TPE site. Head on over there and check it out for yourself!
The tricky part to describing archival floating frames is that they don’t all look the same. Here is one example of an archival floating picture frame. This particular metal floating picture frame comes with a set of archival foam mounting tabs that stick to the back of your photo and then attach to the archival foam core backing. Each frame comes with 8 mounting tabs as well as the adhesive you use to stick these 1/4″ tabs to the back of your photos. They are super simple to use and easily come off when removed from your photo.
By using these archival mounting tabs, it allows the artwork to float and prevents the image from touching the glass. As you can see in this picture, this floating frame has an extra deep space between the glass and the archival foam so you can use it for more than just displaying photos. With this extra space you can display thick items up to 1/2″ thick and use this frame as a shadow box frame.Hopefully, you’ll have a better idea of the types of floating frames available so you’ll be able to choose the perfect floating frame for your photo.
This first frame is a Dennis Daniels solid wood shadow box frame with a 1 3/4″ depth. This frame comes in 8.5×11, 12×12 and 11×14 and is available in black, white and dark walnut. You can also get this same easy-to-use frame in a 1/2 depth in 8×8, 10×10 and 12×12 in seven different colors. To open this type of frame you simple take off the backing using the metal turns and slide off the backing- super simple.
This second type of shadow box frame is metal with a 1/2″ depth. This metal shadow box frame opens up by sliding off one of the sides and then sliding in your foam core board with your keepsakes attached. To open the frame, all you do is lift the plastic tabs and slide off the side with both hands.
This is just one super simple example of a shadow box to display athletic awards. With items like medals, you can pin them to the shadow box frame backing (with this particular frame it has an acid free foam core backing) or you can stitch them to a piece of material and wrap the material around the backing. Both ways work just fine. The shadow box frame displayed with the awards is a Silver Metal Shadow Box Frame with a 1/2″ depth.
With a shadow box frame you can get really creative in how you display your shells. I didn’t want to secure the large shells to the backing so I just placed them in the shadow box frame and sprinkled small shells along the bottom to add a little more decoration to the frame. You could get creative and glue sand to the backing but I was wanting a simple way to display two of my more fragile shells and keep them protected. The frame I used here was a 
You can also display items like collector’s plates as well. Although you can get frames designed specifically for plates, I personally like the rectangular shape of the frame with the round plate because it gives the plate a different look. Plus, I wanted a way to display the certificate with the plate so I wouldn’t lose it. Another reason I like this shadow box frame is because I can easily remove the backing and change plates as frequently as I want. The frame used here was a 
