CameraTrace

Software

Catch that thief.

This is clever. Given that most cameras record their serial number in the photo file’s metadata, this app allows you to track pictures published on sites like Flickr using that serial number, searching for it on the web:

Click the picture for the maker’s site.

Now my Panny G3 is not exactly something I would really miss were it stolen. It’s not ‘throw-away cheap’ but it’s close and, if stolen, likely does not warrant the expenditure of time and effort to recover it, though I suppose the psychic satisfaction of catching a thief might be worthwhile. But if I owned something silly-priced like a Leica M9 or S2, or a digital Hasselblad, then this app would get my attention. As for the iPhone, whose content has value far above the cost of the hardware, ‘Find My iPhone’ does the trick at no extra cost and stories abound of the flat footed set apprehending thieves.

For UK residents, there’s a like app named StolenCameraFinder.

Something to bookmark should that awful day ever come.

Goosed

Photographs

A charming display.

Spotted in downtown Carmel, CA.

G3, Olympus 9-18mm @ 18mm, 1/320, f/5.6, ISO1600.

In the land of high-end retail everything sells.

You can see just how diminutive the G3 is in the reflection. Any smaller and it would be hard to hold.

Rather than risking reflections from the camera’s flash, I processed the snap in Photoshop, outlining the birds with the Magic Lasso and bringing them up a tad using the Curves tool.

Steamed up

Photographs

Flowers.

I don’t do flowers, not if I can help it. It’s a genre where it’s almost impossible to say anything new.

Yet one of the key attractions of the coastal town of Carmel, CA is the abundance of flowers on display throughout the year. Be it in stores, restaurants or well tended gardens, they are everywhere.

These caught my eye on a stroll through downtown the other day:


Carmel, CA. G3, Olympus 9-18mm @ 12mm, 1/200, f/5.6, ISO320.

The wide zoom Olympus MFT 9-18mm lens is ideal for this sort of thing, and makes a fine walk-about companion for the 14-45mm kit zoom.

When I’m 64

Photographs


Will you still need me?
Will you still heed me?
When I’m 64.

Some aver that Seward Johnson’s lifelike outdoor bronzes are kitsch. Others denigrate them for his use of modeling software like Maya, the technology speeding the production cycle.

Seated couple at 6th and Lincoln, Carmel, CA. G3, 9-18mm Oly @ 15mm, 1/400 f/5.6, ISO320.

You can make your own mind up, though I confess I tend to find them never less than amusing and, on occasion, as above, surprisingly poignant. They are Americana in much the same way that Norman Rockwell’s work is, and Rockwell’s oeuvre has much the same accusations leveled at it.

Seward Johnson’s entry in Wikipedia makes for interesting reading.