Category Archives: Photographs

Five years old today

Photographers, Photographs, Photography

This blog, that is.

Daniel Boorstin, Librarian of Congress, said “I write to find out what I think.” I find I am like minded. Setting down ideas each day is a helpful process which, I suppose, is why I write this blog.

So it comes as a signal pleasure to relate that this journal is five years old today.

First post date …. for UK readers, at least.

Those five years have seen a revolution in the technology of photography, exemplified by my own experience. This photographer was a Leica devotee of some 35 years’ happy use back on June 15, 2005, with some serious Rollei medium format gear on the side. Today the hardware consists of a Canon 5D when the very highest quality ‘medium format’ quality is called for and a Panasonic G1 for street happy snapping, with the diminutive Panasonic LX1 in the glove compartment. Not a film camera in sight, these all having moved to collectors’ closets over the past five years, neatly paying for most of the digital gear in the process. Now while digital gear has all the charisma and charm of a cold war era Soviet politician, unlike that bear of old it does produce consistently, at a quality level superior in every way to film and getting better daily. What’s not to like? OK, so you no longer regard it as an heirloom to pass down to your nearest and dearest, as it will be unrepairable electronic detritus five years hence, but it is so cheap and so competent that the result is a win for the user and the maker. Confirming what I wrote, to much opprobium, on July 5, 2005, Film is dead. And so is Kodak.

The software front here has enjoyed a rock stable combination of OS X on various Macs accompanied by Lightroom which is now in its third iteration, though the changes at the margin are becoming …. marginal. A robust pair that never lock up and continue to make me wonder, as I have for the past decade, why anyone valuing his time would use the fraud that is Windows.

Processing hardware has been less of a joy, not helped by a litany of failures from Apple’s awful hardware, with only the iPhone being distinguished by its reliability, likely accompanied by the too-new-to-say iPad. Mercifully, I saw the light a while back and built my own HackPro from inexpensive PC parts and it has been running totally glitch-free 24 by 7 since put into service. It’s as fast as just about any overpriced MacPro on the planet and a fraction of the cost, not to mention infinitely upgradeable for low outlay. The advent of OS X for Intel CPUs made this possible so it was not a practical proposition until fairly recently. Every self-respecting photographer who demands the very best in performance from his processing hardware should consider building one of these, avoiding Apple’s overpriced, short lived desktop and laptop jewelry like the plague.

Mention of the iPad does not require much of a stretch to pronounce that the PC is Dead. The form factor and user interface of this device will come to dominate content consumption and creation over the next five years in much the same way digital imaging has come to dominate photography over the past five. Our children will ask why anyone in their right mind ever used a keyboard, one of the few remnants of antiquity in modern societies. Get ready to say goodbye first to your clunky, overheating laptop and, eventually, to your desktop gear.

No mention of hardware can be complete without lauding HP’s now discontinued DesignJet 90 wide format printer, which makes fade free prints in sizes up to 18″ x 24″ without complaining and does so at very modest cost. It made possible my one man show a while back and I bless it daily. A tool which does exactly what the maker claims – makes superb prints. It remains a great value on the used market though I suppose that, with the advent of cheap large screen TVs, I ought to add the the Print is Dead and the ecosystem of the world can only benefit.

On the personal fulfillment front, or whatever the current psychobabble calls it, photographic life has been eminently satisfying, seeing the production of two books of photographs and a one man show in April 2007. Lots of hard work and lots of fun.

This journal has also been lucky in featuring the work of many outstanding current and past photographers, and you need only click the drop-down menus above (‘Photographers’) to see their work. If I were forced to name five who have most affected me and my work they would be Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Penn, Porter and Horst. All are profiled on this site.

And finally, there’s the list of stinkers which you can see by clicking here. These range from jerks like ‘Anonymous’ who posts idiotic comments here, to unscrupulous photographers who think nothing of turning tragedy to profit by false means, conflicted ‘journalists’ who laud gear after first making sure future free loaners are guaranteed, and modern day crooks like Google who are robbing us of our privacy while jealously safeguarding their own. This will not change, for there are fortunes to be made, as these miscreants have learned, from human gullibility. This blog remains totally revenue free (meaning I make nothing, zilch, nada from it – even my modest book sale profits go to charity) with no click-through earnings of any sort, so you can expect it will remain outspoken, skeptical and fearless over the next five years.

Celebrating five great years.

Thanks for stopping by this last half-decade and I hope we are both around five years’ hence.

Number Ten

Photographs

When I took this picture the world’s most famous political address was on its previous coalition government. 1974.

That address is 10 Downing Street, London, SW1.

Today, Britain has a new coalition government, and while my interest in politics compares unfavorably to my interest in bilge water, today’s UK government cannot possibly be any worse than the one in force when I snapped the picture below. That one saw me immigrate to the US. I doubt the current one will have me return. But I wish them well.

Number 10, 1974. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX, D76, 6.5 minutes @ 68F

It was as perfect a day in London as one can imagine. Spring. The Tube to Green Park, a stroll through that park and St. James’s Park up Pall Mall to Horseguards’ Parade, and thence to Downing Street, before crazies dictated security and bomb proof jackets. The Leica. One click. The picture.

A different time, a different world.

Guardian Eyewitness

iPad, Photographs

A fine photo gallery app for the iPad

Britain’s Guardian newspaper is not only a repository of thoughtful news reportage, it has also just released a free new iPad app named Guardian Eyewitness.

The first release includes 100 photographs:

An especially nice feature is that clicking on Pro Tip tells you what makes the photo special:

Worth checking out – it’s the sort of quality content and presentation you will not be seeing from the knuckle-dragging right.

At Alice’s Restaurant

Photographs

Mecca for bikers.

If there are two ‘must visit’ biker spots in America then one is The Rock Store in the Malibu mountains, which I frequented for years at weekends when living in Los Angeles, and Alice’s Restaurant in the hills between Woodside and the Pacific in northern California.

Bikers have been coming here for generations and there are essentially three kinds:

Fast Men: They ride early when it’s cool in the full body leather suits they invariably prefer, and mostly ride 750 and 1,000cc Japanese race machinery, emblazoned with bold graphics. The pucks on their knees are frequently worn and the set is mostly young, slim and trim. They ride fast. The elite of this set rides Ducatis and the occasional MV Agusta, both going for the price of a good new car and simply divine to see.

Bold graphics.

These men, and they are men 99% of the time, have time only for the like minded and regard strangers with suscpicion:

Regarding this stranger with suspicion

Harley riders: These are the poseurs of the biker world. Not only can’t they ride, their chrome encrusted machines are intended to take attention away from their beer bellies and unkempt beards. Sorry, no pictures of this lot as they don’t arrive until late after lunch, when the six pack hangover from the previous night has lifted. Most still rue the passing of the Viet Nam war and hanging out with their buddies in a stoned haze.

Old farts: As I’m a member of this set I naturally have nothing but good things to say about its members. We don’t give a damn what you think, don’t much care how we look and generally have contempt for government. Our bikes are generally old and interesting, and attract all the attention. After all, when you’ve seen one HonYamSuzKawaski, you have seen them all.

Old Fart chats with a Fast Man.

This OF had an amusing NOS sticker on his starter (Nitrous Oxide gas injection meant to boost power) which, he told me, fooled most of the people most of the time. “I put it there because the starter looked kinda bare, you know?”

Old Fart portrait.

Finally, if you want to command the stage at Alice’s, forget about turning up in the latest Ferrari on a weekend, as one twit did today, because sure as heck no one will be impressed and even fewer will pay attention. A Ferrari here says you just don’t get it. We bikers care little for your girlfriend’s silicone or your gold chains.

This Russian Ural with sidecar was parked next to aforesaid Ferrari and was pulling in the crowds. Black Ferrari just visible behind.

The Ural may be a lousy rip off of my old BMW, but it’s a lot more entertaining to look at than most machines I know.

And, finally, yes you do get the occasional woman rider and generally they are not to be messed with.

Not to be messed with

P.S. There is a fourth subset known as Squids. These are 17 year old kids riding brand new Japanese 600cc race machines which go 170mph for $8,000, and are meant to be ridden in tennies and T shirts. However, it’s impossible to show any snaps of members of this set as they are either all dead or in what is known as the Vegetable Patch in the local hospital with terminal brain damage.

All snaps on the Panasonic G1 with the kit lens.

No more dead forests

iPad, Photographs

Magazines on the iPad.

Much as I enjoy my monthly fix of fashion and gossip, not to mention some of the best photography on planet earth, which arrives in the mail in the guise of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair, I always think when I recycle these what a stunning waste of resources they represent. Forests and nasty chemicals to make, fuel to deliver, fuel to recycle, and so on. Now while I’m not some nutty global warming crazy, it just seems wrong that we should be destroying the world’s resources in search of the latest in clothing and fashions.

Zinio to the rescue! They have just released an iPad app, and while it’s a work in progress it looks very promising. Some magazines don’t get it yet – meaning that links to articles, advertisers, related web sources, etc. should be clickable (Duh!) but it’s a start. You pay, download the magazine and can take it with you to read at any location with the caveat that any links that are present dictate the need for a wifi connection if they are to work.

National Geographic doesn’t get links, yet, (I sometimes wonder if they get anything judging by their poorly engineered archive DVDs) and the issue takes a minute to load, but that’s not long to wait for some of the world’s greatest photography. I’m reproducing what follows at full iPad screen size so you can get a sense of the quality:

National Geographic downloads ….

Here’s a typical photo display:

A photo in full screen display:

And another – an absolute show stopper from Gerd Ludwig:

Here’s the subscription screen for Harper’s with a lovely Demi Moore on the cover:

I forget what I pay for the print subscription but suspect it’s more than the $8 asked for the iPad one.

Macworld most certainly does get clickable links, and they have a very nice implementation, ads and all. No issue with the latter as they add value to any user interested in what’s out there.

I learned of the availability of Macworld on the iPad by accident and shame on the publishers for doing such a poor job of advertising it. It’s excellent and as my print sub just expired, I’ll be renewing for the electronic version which is far easier to read than their free web site in Safari.

There are a few British magazines and many Chinese (!) ones available. The British ones are simply clueless on pricing – an annual subscription typically being twelve times the cost of one issue. Double Duh!

Otherwise, what’s not to like?

Disclosure: Long AAPL common, now appreciated 68.7 32gB iPads at the time of writing. You do the math. Short AAPL covered call options at the time of writing.