A year of isolation – 2020

Bio

These pieces generally run annually in time for Hanukkah and Christmas.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859.

From March on it has been a year of isolation.


We are all essentially alone.

To point out the year’s villains is a simple task.

  • A murderous, psychopathic Pig in the Oval Office, who will have killed 500,000 Americans when all is said and done.
  • The 74mm Americans who just voted for Pig.
  • The US legislature which has ensured millions of Americans have not enough to eat.

But it is far more positive, more hopeful, to name the many heroes who are helping ensure that we will soon be returning to sunlit uplands:

  • The frontline doctors and nurses who risked everything daily in the service of their fellow man.
  • Two Turkish Muslims without whose pioneering work there would be no vaccine. These are the people our Administration has demonized and excluded.
  • The 80 million Americans who saw the light of day and returned Pig to his natural habitat, the ordure he so richly deserves.
  • Jeff Bezos and his superb workforce. Without his wonderful Amazon and Whole Foods home grocery deliveries I would almost certainly be dead.
  • But, most of all, my gorgeous son, who took the courageous decision to take a gap year before starting as a freshman at college. His optimism, joy of life, increasing debating and argument skills and pleasurable company have been a gift impossible to ever replicate. Thank you, Winston.


My son.

Images: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome, 1978. iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2020.

Night scenes

Photographs

Joy of the season.

All told there are some 134 homes in my Scottsdale community, and while the Stepford aspects sometimes irritate (limited color palette permitted, lots of rules, all the wives with perfect teeth and plastic chests, driving BMWs) there’s no denying the pride of place exhibited by homeowners.

Last night, with my son driving, we toured the community at night and counted no fewer than 30 homes decorated with Christmas lights, and very professionally at that. Here are seven of the best:








iPhone 12 Pro Max, handheld, Apple ProRAW, processed in LR.

Apple ProRAW

Photographs

Another nail in the DSLR’s coffin.


Here’s Apple on the technology.

Your intrepid writer was to be seen at 2AM of a beautiful Scottsdale night (Jammies? Scotch tartan, green. Slippers from LL Bean) banging away in both JPG and ProRAW on the iPhone 12 Pro Max after installing iOS 14.3, the operating system which added ProRAW support.

Great news? My ancient Lightoom 6.4 imports the files faster than a Wall Street shyster can take your money, no questions asked. Apple uses the universal DNG file format, saving us yet another upgrade from the nasty people at Adobe and allowing what is now ‘legacy’ software to continue working fine. No monthly shakedown payment required.

Here’s the import dialog in LR for both the JPG and ProRAW files:


The import dialog.

The files after import:


The imported files.

As Apple advises, file sizes for the RAW images are much larger, suggesting you want to selectively use the technology to conserve storage space – there’s a toggle in the photo taking screen:


File sizes.

The ProRAW highlights in this extreme dynamic range image seem beyond redemption:


ProRAW highlights.

But after working the sliders vigorously ….


Slider adjustments.

….a crackerjack image emerges:


After slider adjustments.

ProRAW is not true RAW, in the sense that Apple (wisely) retains its image manipulation to provide the sharpest images by melding the best, and adding Deep Fusion where appropriate. But the results meaningfully improve on SOOC JPGs, just be prepared to work the post-processing software quite a bit. Nothing a Preset or two in LR couldn’t largely automate.

iPhone 12Pro Max bumper

iPhone

Protecting the lens assembly.



Click the image to go to Amazon.

It’s not that easy to find a pure bumper for the iPhone 12Pro Max. Most cases come with a variety of front and rear covers, neither wanted by this user as I use a belt holster.

I did not want to get a case for the iPhone 12, to keep bulk down and to retain the better grip afforded by the square sides. However I did find the sides rather slippery but, more importantly, noticed that the protruding lens assembly meant that the iPhone would not rest flat on a desk or table, but would rest that corner on the lenses themselves. Not good.

So I caved and got one of the above. It’s slightly less slippery than the native edge, the square profile of the sides is retained, the touch of the buttons remains good (though the mute switch is a bit tough to access) and it has corner protrusions which protect the lenses when the iPhone is placed lens-down on a flat surface. While the package included a screen protector I consider that a waste of time as I have never known an iPhone screen to scratch unless something truly thoughtless is done to it, like putting it in a pocket with unprotected keys. As for covering the lovely Pacific Blue back, why on earth would you want to do that?