4x5photo

I find it sad that the one really truly non-renewable resource we have seems to be the easiest to waste. I can waste time doing any number of things - although there's now one less, I sent the DISH network packing. I've more or less given up on computer games. Fortunately I don't consider reading a waste of time - if it were and wasting time was actually a crime I'd be put away for life.

I'm a very laid-back individual it takes quite a bit to get me P.O.'d but other people wasting my time will do it. Phones do it even quicker. People wasting my time on the phone win's every time. How many people do you know that can ignore a phone? One of the very few redeeming qualities of cell phones is that they can be set to vibrate, turned off, or the ringer can be canceled. How wonderful is that? Why is it that you can walk into a store money in hand and the people behind the counter will ignore you for someone on the phone? Why does a phone take priority over a person standing right there?

As to time wasting - I'm hoping that I'm finally about done shopping for camera gear. It's expensive, time consuming, does noting to improve your skills as a photographer, doesn't improve your art, doesn't make art and yet all photographers are compelled to jump into this morass now and then. More often since digital, less often since the economy tanked. I'm not completely out of the rat race, still tracking down a few last things in my attempt to go digital - I'm doing this on the theory that in the long run it will save me a lot of time and possibly some money but at the moment it doesn't feel that way. I also will have to spend some time selling stuff - at least there's a positive cash flow from that, helps take the sting out of the time gone into the sewer of wasted time.

I've been doing photography related stuff for weeks, and it's really getting me in a creative frame of mind.

1. Listening to Lenswork Podcasts while driving
2. Listening to Camera Position Podcasts while working with photoshop or driving
3. Reading about photography
4. Listening to my favorite music
5. Looking at other peoples work
6. Thinking about what a photograph is - or isn't.

My current definition:

A photograph is not about the thing your taking a picture of - it's about the emotion you feel when you experience that thing. If you don't have an emotional reaction to what your seeing, there's no value in pointing a camera at it, you'll just end up with a photograph that has no meaning.

Photography is predatory; we want to capture something that moves us in some way and make it ours, to keep it. Photography is altruistic; we see something that moves us and we want to share that feeling. Photography is arrogant; we point our camera at something, we make a photograph, we are saying THIS is important, THIS is special, the viewer should pay attention to THIS.

In photography, we can take something away with us, with out taking anything away. Our goal is to elicit an emotional response, it is not make it possible to experience life later. For a time, I thought it was to get the view to experience the same emotion I had when I decided to make the image. Later, I realized that not everyone would have the same response even if they stood where I stood, and saw what I saw. Now I'm satisfied when I get any response. I photographed a scene of ice forming on a creek, I experienced joy in the motion of the water, and wonder in the transitory sculpture, created by nature, who didn't care one whit if it was ever seen by single soul. Sharing the image with someone, they felt the cold and were curious about how the ice had formed, not the same thing but maybe close enough.

I've gotten in a creative groove, and I hope it keeps going because I can't do anything about it today - and maybe not much for a couple of weeks. Bad timing on the creative groove - but nothing I can do about it except try to maintain.

What I really need to do is clean the house (which I've started on but I think I need to break for brunch - then back at it House cleaning for me usually happens when I get to the point where the accumulation of stuff I've gotten out of where ever it was stashed for what ever reason builds up and I just can't take it anymore. Or, I have company coming. In this case it's both.

Now I don't want to give the impression that it's really bad - it's not. It's just stacks of stuff on every flat surface, and it's really time to mop the floors since I've been tracking stuff in for a couple of weeks. This goes back to the bad habits are easy idea, once the house is clean again, I remember - for a while - to take my boots off when I come in, I remember to put stuff away - for a while. At some point I'll be in a hurry or thinking about something else and poof - there it goes.

Well I've been scanning negatives and slides like a madman for the last couple of days. About 80 of them. Part of this is an attempt to see which ones my scanner is going to have issues with. It turns out that this stupidly expensive scanner doesn't like large areas of no texture - such as clear blue sky on a B&W negative (comes out essentially light gray) I get banding - not good.

I'm hopping Hasselblad can fix this and it won't cost me an arm and a leg. If it looks to be too much - it's just going to push me closer to a decision on a 24+ mega pixel camera. Right now it's between.
Sony Alpha 900
Nikon D3x
Phase One P30+
Phase One P45+
The Phase One systems I'm looking for used - way too expensive new but apparently hard to come by used.

Everything is a trade-off for something else.

Time spent reading or time spent photographing. Time spent waiting in airports or time spent driving. The quality of 4x5 film vs the ease and speed of Digital. Paying for film and developing as you go or paying for digital all up front.

Sometimes trade-offs are easy to figure, other times it's hard. It could be a simple as your current mood, or as complex as weighting opportunity costs of spending investment capital in a recession.

There's an old saying - "If it was easy everyone would do it". But everyone has to deal with trade-offs - does that mean it's easy?

I decided to cut my road trip short - I'll be heading out again in February. I've been struggling with camera choices. I can't say that at the level of camera I'm looking at that I'm very happy with any of them. I also have a problem with my film scanner - the problem is only apparent in images with large areas of very smooth tones - bald sky (no clouds) is the primary culprit - I get banding - subtle lines of slightly lighter and darker shades. So before I go choose a new camera I figured I find out how much it's going to cost to fix the scanner. As much as I love my 4x5 - it's not the ideal camera for a lot of conditions - it's fairly large and makes a pretty good sail when the wind is up. you can't use it for street candid photography - it requires a good size tripod. And it's film - currently there are ZERO places to process 4x5 color in Seattle - I have to send it to Spokane or one of the shops in California to get done - it's about $6.00 every time I click the shutter - B&W is cheaper because I by sheets and develop myself even so it's probably $3/sheet by the time I'm done and that doesn't include darkroom time, or scanning time. I can develop 12 negatives in an evening unless I'm really in a hurry - then I can do 24. 12 takes about 2 hours for setup development and cleanup. The next day I scan - that's about 30 min per image, sometimes it's a bit faster - maybe 15 minutes if it's an easy negative - on average call it 4.5 hours to scan 12 negs. Then again - I shoot two of everything (always make a backup) so I really only scan 6 of the 12.

As you can see - a digital system would pay for it's self in a few years (or less).

On cameras I'm down to 4 choices

Sony Alpha 900 - which I've all but ruled out because I can't do mirror lockup and bracketing at the same time (really stupid design decision on Sony's part) - Excellent lenses especially the Zeiss glass. Image stabilization that works with every lens because it's built into the body. No shift/tilt lenses yet (if ever?).

Nikon D3x - which is too expensive even though it's the best DSLR on the market today (maybe not next month - depends on when Canon returns fire). In any case I shoot Nikon now, and this would be the easy choice except for the 8K price tag. Some excellent glass but not quite on par with the Sony/Zeiss lenses. A few really nice Shift/Tilt lenses though - better than Canon or the non-existent Sony ones :).

Phase One/ Mamiya medium format - using the Phase One 39 Megapixel back. - Amazing image quality and I could use the digital back on my 4x5 - there's just a few little catches - a used back is going to cost between 15K and 20K - new they're 30K - Mamiya AFDIII is kind of bulk and slow - but that's fine on a tripod. There's no image stabilization which makes hand held a bit problematic as you need to shoot a fairly high shutter speeds - but none of the digital backs handle ISO's above 100 very well. That means basically hauling 3 cameras around for best results - 2 if I'm willing to give up any sift/tilt options. Kinda heavy - pretty expensive - lots of bulk.

Leica S2 - 37.5 Mega pixels Leica Lenses (best in the world) specifically designed for the S2 sensor. This should have the best image quality of any camera on the market. Then again - no image stabilization, only 4 lenses listed at the moment - but I know they have a number of them planned - what's unknown is the price - Leica being of German manufacture is not cheap. Also there's the Leica Name - so any way you look at it -this won't be a cheap system - wild guess - the body will sell for between 20,000 and 30,000 - yeah that's 4 zeros. In reality - I probably can't afford to do that so....

It's enough to make me want to scream.

A few from this trip.

Road Trip

I've decided to cut my road trip short. I'll be doing another one probably in February, then again but on the bike in May, the May Trip is primarily to get away while they close the hood canal bridge for 6+ weeks, making it a MAJOR hassle to get to Seattle - basically I either have to drive all the way around Hood Canal, to Bremerton (or Tacoma) 2.5hrs + 30 mins on Ferry, + ferry wait time. Or go up to Port Townsend and take a Ferry to Keystone, (about 1 hour if I time it right) then drive for almost 3 hours - or take yet another ferry.

Much better to be out of town :)

I hate new years resolutions. With that in mind -

I resolve to not make any :)

Have a good one.

Looks like today will be another no-contrast day - really flat light, while that works for places like the Columbia Gorge - it's less than ideal in an open valley covered with snow. Probably no photography today (we'll see).

Map

Marry Christmas from the middle of nowhere. We're getting about 2-4 inches of snow a day. With occasional sun. It's a very white Christmas.

I've put my plans for selling the house on hold for a while, it doesn't look like the market has hit bottom yet, but would just about the time I got it listed - better to wait a bit and see I think, if I can find I can rent it out at a rate that makes sense then I might go that route. Otherwise, I may do what I've been considering for a while now, and see about getting a part time job at Starbucks - the pay is minimal but the smell is wonderful, primarily after 6 months it would get rid of $430/mo in health insurance.

A the moment the Jeep is doing a fine job of getting me around in the snow. I'm a bit unhappy with the defroster as it like to leave ice on the sides near the bottom unless I crank it up to the point where I have to open a window to keep from roasting. This only seems to be an issue when driving into fog at a brisk 20degrees F, so I guess I can live with it. I could wish it had another 8 inches of space in the back. I'm 5'9" and with the seats down it's about 5'5" so I can at times get a little cramped for sleeping.

Once I don't have to worry about snow/ice on the road - I'll be back to the motorcycle and tent. It too has it's trade-offs; like having to remove helmet, gloves, and most often jacket before I dig out the camera gear to shoot, then put everything back on. On the other hand, I'd rather put up with that than not wear the protective gear (jacket/gloves/pants).

As we slide into the 2nd great depression it's become apparent that selling photography is going to reach a new all time high in difficulty. When people start to cut back it's that frivolous stuff that goes first.

I would like to recommend that each and everyone of you run out and buy a piece of art, for the sake of the economy, to enrich your lives, and finally to act as a reminder that despite what the media says, there is still beauty in the world.

Maybe I've reached that enlightened state of Curmudgeonhood but it seems to me that people designing technology today are idiots.

My Jeep came with a GPS that turns off the onscreen keyboard when the vehicle is in motion - I understand the logic - this is every bit a scary as people texting (when did text become a verb?) on their phones while driving. The thing I don't under stand is that they will let me select things from lists - but only if the list is under 5 pages - So when I tell it I want to narrow the search to Oregon (my default is Washington) - I can't do it, it's more than 5 pages down - FIVE - why five? - There's a list of POI's (points of interest) - I can hit that and select things - except it's a really basic list. The extended list button disappears - so apparently it's ok to hit some buttons but not others while your driving, the selection seems pretty random.

The bluetooth on my Garmin will let me copy the entire phonebook from my phone to it - the one in the Jeep? no, the one in the ragtop? sure - one at a time.

Then there's cameras. The Sony A900 will let you take 3 exposures with one press of a button. This is a good thing - auto bracketing, one of the 3 will be close, or even better blend all three and get a better exposure than you could from any single frame. It will let you lock the mirror up (mostly used on a tripod) to reduce vibration and squeeze out that extra bit of sharpness, also a good thing. What it won't let you do is use mirror lockup and auto-bracket at the same time. No real reason other than they decided to put them on the same control button - so you only get to pick one. With the Nikon I can do both - of course I have to press the shutter 2 times for each exposure onece to lock up the mirror, once to take the picture - to see how bad that really is let me walk you though and not uncommon scenario for me.

I decide I want to make a panoramic, this involves taking several images side by side (overlapping actually) and then stitching them together in Photoshop. So I decide I need 9 images to get the width I want. But I have interesting things in the shadows that I want in the images and I have sun light clouds - essentially an impossible shot until you use photoshop or other image processing tool. Then what I do is take get one exposure that's 2 stops too dark and one that's in the middle and one that's 2 stops too light blend them together and (magic happens here) the prefect exposure!. On the Sony - no problem (well except the mirror lock up part) just use auto-backet 2stops apart 3 shots. On the Nikon, turn on mirror lockup - set for 2 stops apart - oh wait - can only do 1 stop apart so that means I have to take 5 shots and throw away 2. Now, with the mirror lock up I have to hit the button 2 times for each shot so let's see - were up to 10 now. Ok, so this is a panoramic and we're going to stitch 9 shots together but to get my exposures I have to take 3 (wait no on the Nikon it's 5 shots so I can end up with three at each position so lets see that's.... 45 shots so with mirror lockup that's..... Gee that's only 90 presses of the shutter with a bit of camera movement after every 10 - gee this digital stuff is easy right?

And it's much worse than it sounds because the light's changing and your in a hurry......

From what I understand from Canon users they just don't bother with mirror lockup at all - it's buried as deep as "Talk to a live person" on a phone menu - it's there you just can't find it.

There's at least 5 more issues with each of these cameras that make me wonder if they bothered to have a photographer try the camera before they went into production.

Then there's - no I need to stop now. Think happy thoughts.

Ok I feel better now :)

When I have to go into Seattle - I take the ferry. On the motorcycle it's $5 each way. - less if you buy a pass (which I do) and we're first on first off (well except for bicycles) which means I can, if I think about it, time my arrival so that I'm only waiting for a few minutes. On the other hand, I almost never bother to time my arrival. The downside is that it's really hard to carry coffee on a motorcycle unless you have a thermos - which means you have to remember to bring it, and then stop to get it filled. So today I was going to jump on the bike and head into Seattle to pick up photo inkjet paper (22x17) and stop by Glazer's; one of the few remaining Pro camera stores in Seattle.

As I'm writing this I'm thinking about studying CSS/XHTML and how much easier it would be if I took the Jeep. Then I could pick up the paper in Bellevue, come back to Seattle and hit Glazer's then head down to the ferry for the ride home, and miss most of the rush hour traffic - except at the Ferry where I'd likely have to sit for about an hour, and it's $11.55 each way. If I hustle, I can probably beat the lines at the ferry. So 2 hours over, 2 hours back, and 2 hours there. Hardly seems worth it. I suppose to day I'll opt for comfort over speed and take the Jeep. At least I can study while I'm waiting for the ferry.

So by the time I pay for gas, and the ferry I will have spend probably 2 times the cost to ship the paper via UPS....... I think I need to plan the Seattle trips a little farther ahead, so I can get more done while I'm there.

In an effort to build the website I really want - I'm going back and relearning HTML, CSS, Java, SQL, and probably adding Ajax, and PHP to the mix. I came across the HEAD FIRST line of books - and I'm pretty impressed - sure a lot of it is review for me but still - a very organized and memorable way to tackle the problem - just wish they had the PHP/MySQL book available.

I've been writing letters to Nikon, Leica, Red, and Sony - all makers of digital cameras that I'm interested in. The purpose of these letters is to get these companies to do a little simple innovation to make the life of nature/landscape, and architectural, and even wildlife photographers, a bit easier.

It's kind of amazing what hoops we have to jump tough to geotag our photo's - first you carry around a gps data logger. Then you have to make sure your camera's clock and the gps are set to the same time, then you have to load images onto the computer, log the gps track log in. Then you try to match up the photo's by time, to the gps log by time - now there's a lot of software that makes that not too hard but your still looking at an hour or more if you shoot the way I do - if you shoot more (and lot's do) then it's even more work. How do you fix this?

Bluetooth in cameras. - the benefits many and all very useful.
1. gets gps coordinates from you bluetooth enabled gps (a few dozen choices at the moment) and automatically adds the data to the RAW or jpg files, in the camera - just saved me an hour or more of work - per shooting day.
2. A Class A transceiver has a range of 100meters (or more) - great for remote control of the camera/flashes. Can also be used with a lap top to do tethered shooting - full control of the camera from you laptop.
3. Transfer files to the computer just by turning it on. With a little bit of software work - you could even specify that it should make a backup to an external drive before deleting the files from the camera. Mot sure I would use this, as I end up with 2 or 3 cards full before I get around to transferring to HD, but for the more casual shooter - it would be nice.

You can find bluetooth in point and shoots but oddly - not in pro cameras. Very annoying.

I have some pet peeves when it comes to web sites and photo web sites in particular.

1. Navigation: I really hate having to hunt around for the next button. It's a small thing but I find it distracting when I want to view the next image I have to look around for the next button and move the mouse. Better to just keep those buttons in the same place.

2. Images: Little bitty images in particular I have a large screen - really large for a computer - 30" and it's high res. 2560 x 1600. When the site I'm viewing puts up images that are 300x200 they might as well be thumbnails. On the other hand - my laptop is running at 1440x800 so the images need to not be too big. There's a problem with the technology at this point. To have an image scale requires Flash, or Silverlight - but I don't want to use either for a number of reasons. So that means pre-selecting sizes and offering the viewer a choice. I have java code that will usually determine the resolution the browser is running at, so at least I'll be able to provide a default. Still if anyone knows of a way to scale images with out flash or silverlight, let me know.

3. Organization. Can't just have one big list of greatest hits which is what most photo websites really are. The images don't belong together other than "by photographer" which if you only have 10-20 is probably OK. There should be an organizing theme to images - a project, a theme, a style & subject matter, something. Otherwise I get the impression that the photographer picked there 15 LUCKY shots and that's all there is.

4. 1000 Words: A picture might be worth a 1000 words but it's worth a lot more if you include a few words. As I get more experience with sharing my images, I find that the story behind the image has a significant impact on what people get out of an image. The trick is finding a way to provide the words with out distracting from the image. I'm leaning toward a down to earth artists statement for a collection then just a few words about each image. Sometimes a title would be enough - other times, a bit more. Too many sites have too little to say - mine included.

Here I am, wondering why I can't seem to keep a journal up to date. It's not like my life is boring - well OK maybe a little bit. What it really comes down to is a lack of routine. Sometimes routine can be a good thing (Brain: Keep repeating that until you believe it. Brain on Coffee: yeah that'll work sure...)

Ok here we go again - an attempt to establish a routine. Why? well I'm not getting done the things that need to get done. I have a whole summer full of projects that didn't happen due to sciatica - and with out a routine, nothing else got done either. This is something I should learn from and try not to repeat.

I'm working with Brad to create a web site for my photography - yes I have one but I hate it. It takes forever to update, hence I haven't. The new site will use MySQL to store image data. And build things like Galleries and Projects based on data. That data will come from keywords in image files, so when they arrive at the web server, a script will pull the keywords and update the database. So the basic workflow will be

Copy images to HD
GeoTag
Import Image to lightroom
Add keywords
Edit out the junk
Camera Raw Processing
Photoshop
create jpegs for web
upload
run addimages script

Tada! - updated web site. And since I have to do everything from copy to HD, though upload no matter what - all that's required with the new site we're working on will be to run the script - much easier than creating dozens of (simple but annoying) html files (one per image)
which the current site requires.

BUT ..... to get the new site done will require ROUTINE. So I might as well put updating the journal and blog into the routine too.

Why is it that BAD habits are easy and GOOD habits are difficult?

Habits I'd like to have
Eating well for all the obvious reasons.
This would require getting rid a bad habit (or 10) like eating out instead of cooking at home.

Getting up early. Say around or just before sunrise would be good - that would make it easier to shoot pictures in that wonderful early morning light.

Regular Posts to my journal.

I suppose if I wanted to depress myself I could think of a lot more - but I'm not going to.
I think what I need is a routine - or a routine that's different my my current routine. It's just so easy for me to slip into the mode of staying up late - wonder why that is?

I'm trying to get my MacPro sync'd with my MacBookPro - I suspect apple's change to mobleme has me scrwed. I'm waiting on their online chat support - the original 1 minute worked it's way up to 7 and is now down to 3. It feels more like 30 - as a matter of fact I think it's actually been more than that - it was just after 1:00 when I started it's almost 1:45 now.

Well - still a bit less annoying than Windows (but at the moment not enough less)

Between research, reading and learning Dreamweaver I'm not getting very much done on the house. Well, OK, the constant rain isn't helping much either. Looks like the Deck materials are going to run a bit over $3000 but it needs doing. I'm not sure if I'm doing travel research as a way to procrastinate or because it just fun. I think it's starting to feel like procrastination. Well nothing for it, I'll get the materials ordered tomorrow, and start the deconstruction - rain or not.

As I research travel, and I think about what to keep and what to sell, I find myself bouncing from a state of mild euphoria to a state of mild fear. I understand what's at the root of both of these emotions, and oddly it's the same thing. Doing something with unknown consequences. Simple things like, not having a home to return to, larger things like will my investment plans provide the income too keep going.

Other concerns are more ephemeral, they come with reminders of travel gone awry, and depart on the heals of stories of travels gone well. It's always hard to know how much of the negative about places you hear is worth believing - everyone is different and I think a lot of folks have trouble in dealing with strangers because they don't do things "Our" way. It's really a form a cultural bigotry and it's easy to fall into. On the other had when your used to the relative safety of the USA and you start thinking about travel in Central and South America, the stories of corrupt police - and I mean casually corrupt as an accepted and daily part of life, it makes me nervous. I'm not sure how much is just fear of the unknown and how much is fear of -- well things that are real. The last thing I need to to unknowingly do something that gets me into real trouble. I also worry about traveling with so much expensive camera gear, but at this point I'm unwilling to do with out, so more research, a lot of which will be talking to other travelers that have been to some of the places I want to visit.

I may just need to go to a few countries where I know I'll be comfortable - like Scotland and England or New Zealand and Australia first. Get used to being on the road as a normal way of life, before I introduce places with great cultural differences about the other places. Work my way up to it.

Assuming I allow myself to succeed in this adventure then a lot of what I spent my life up to this point doing will be gone, what remains will be what I want my life to become. I get excited about unloading this morass of material splendor. Simple is good. I breath easier, I think about the money it will bring in to support the travel, I think about all the money I wasted buying most of it in the first place. Arrgh, no bad thoughts! It's history, done, not worth regretting, let it go. Letting it go is what I intend to do, and once it's gone I can stop thinking about it. Thinking about stuff makes it hard to be present, to live in the moment as it were, because thinking about stuff is seductive, it's an addiction, it's easy, and you get so much help day by day , hour by hour, minute by minute, every where you look.



Steps: Lost my list but not quite 10k any day this week - I'll try to break 10k today.