Have a feeling I’m going to do a lot of damage with this thing.
Thanks to my co-worker Bobby, this little doozie – a workhorse of an SLR that was produced for 21 years – came at just the right time. I’ve been pseudo-shopping for film cameras (especially after messing around with an old Minolta).
The Pentax K1000 takes some might-fine photos, too. Can’t wait.
Instagram feels like my one-off way of sharing photos. I see something I like, I post it everywhere (well, Twitter and Facebook), at least once a day.
But now I find that (a) I’m constantly taking Instagram photos and (b) I have a backlog of photos to use. What to do?
Simple: post two photos a day instead of one. Except that one will be reserved for Instagram users/friends only. It’s Instagram-exclusive.
We hypershare everything these days. We have the ability to post something once and have it appear everywhere. By doing this, no one social platform gets exclusive anything. Part of the attraction of certain social networks, however, is their unique strength: Flickr for photos, Twitter for random thoughts or links, Facebook for information no one cares about.
For Instagram, it’s in-the-moment photos. A photo log of your day. More and more I feel that some of those photos should stick to Instagram, and only Instagram. That’s what makes Instagram special. If someone isn’t on Instagram, they don’t get to reap the benefits.
Plus I get to clear out my catalog of Instagram photos, and my friends on Instagram get to see stuff no one else gets to see.
Goodbye, bike. on Flickr.
I remember the time I had to abandon my bike at the Rockefeller Library at Brown University.
During my New England trip, in 2008, I had high hopes for that bike. All the parks and battlefields I’d visit were perfect for a bike, I thought, so I stuffed it into the hatch of my Suzuki Aerio.
Stuffing it may have been a mistake, however, because the damage was evident immediately. The frame was bent sometime during the trip, and that made the wheel terribly wobbly – making the bike ride like some demented shopping cart.
I only rode it a half mile in Providence, Rhode Island, before giving up. I parked the bike at the library, went inside for a water, came back out to say my goodbyes, and left it there. With any luck, the university would consider it a donation from some stranger.
That incident was one of many I had on that trip: a parking garage booted my car wheel, my knee ached, I got hit on at a rest stop, I stayed at some sleazy motel in New Jersey.
But it wasn’t a bad trip. It was a great trip filled with bad luck.
In a world where everything is becoming virtual people seem to become more and more disconnected from physical media and while that has its upsides there are also the faults of such a way of life. This leads consumers to long for something physical to connect to when enjoying things they take interest in.
Agreed. That’s why I still buy CDs and print my photos.
Call me a railing jumper. I wear it as a point of pride.
That photo of the waterfall above? I had another one from the viewing station, probably 20 to 30 feet above where I took the above shot. Then I glanced over the wooden railing that surrounded the viewing station, saw a root-studded path down to the rocks below, and jumped.
It happens often enough, especially on trips and photo assignments, that I automatically look for a way to hop the fence and find a path to get closer. It happened on that trip Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I only hesitated because there were a mom and a dad, with their two kids, standing next to me, and I didn’t want to be a bad influence on the kids.
But then I thought, “Well, why not?” Maybe the kids will get yelled at now, but isn’t it better to show them that a little rebellion will do you good?
Sure, jumping the fence could get you hurt (the rocks were slippery from the waterfall spray) or arrested (though I didn’t see a sign – but more often I do). But getting a closer view of that waterfall was worth it.
Now this kind of thing gets me in trouble. I’ve had enough run-ins with the authorities that keeps me at least pragmatically cautious. My first instinct, though, is to jump the fence – always has been.
While in Yellowstone, it wasn’t enough that I saw pretty waterfalls from the park roadway. No, I had to slide down the ravine, step into the river, scramble up the rocks, and get a closer view. Tasting the river is more memorable than seeing it from the side window.
At the north rim of the Grand Canyon I noticed, just next to the lot where middle-aged insurance salesmen parked their Buicks, a little outcropping of rock. It was dozens of yards away from the main viewing area, the one encircled by metal railing. This little ledge off to the side? The one partially covered by ragged desert brush and boulders? No one was there. It was all mine.
So I climbed it. And as my legs dangled from the edge and the tourists screamed in horror, I felt like I was getting a view that few people saw. There’s something to be said about experiencing the Grand Canyon all by yourself, with no one around, and with nothing holding you back from the void. There was no railing here.
And so it is with life. That’s pretty obvious, but the more I travel, the more I realize people are content with staying within some prescribed boundary.
This philosophy is largely situational. Rules aren’t there simply to be broken. As Dr. Renner, my journalism professor and mentor always said, “Rules are made for smart people to break.” In other words: learn the rules, pay attention, and break them when it makes sense.
If everyone broke the rules willy-nilly, there might not be waterfalls to photograph. But if breaking the rules means harming nothing or nobody but yourself, I say go for it.
Jump the fence.
Maybe it says something about my compulsion to hang there on the edge of nothing. Maybe I just need medication. I don’t know.
But while I have legs to carry me and a lack of the kind of common sense that says “stay within the boundaries,” I’ll keep doing it.
In fact, I’d recommend it to anyone.
The other day my dad was talking about his cellphone, and how it liked it so much because it was simple. Flip open, find the number you want, dial and talk, and then to hang up you simply close the clam shell.
Smartphones? They’re beyond him. Why do you need all that fancy stuff when you just want to make a phone call?
I almost chalked our conversation up to one of those aren’t-parents-cute moments, but then I thought, gosh, I recently felt the exact same way.
All I wanted was a radio. Nothing fancy, no media-playing capabilities. Just something that turns on, plays a radio station, and that’s it. And I wanted it to be portable enough to carry around the house with me: in the garage, in the kitchen, or in the kitchen window so I can hear it in the backyard.
At a local rummage sale, I found exactly what I was looking for. But to find it, I had to buy something that’s probably close to the same age as me. It’s the above General Electric desktop radio, model 7-4115B. Faux wood grain, black and metal finish, and two knobs – one for volume, and one for tuning. Then there’s a little switch that you flip to go from AM to FM.
It’s gorgeous, and it’s perfect, and it only cost me $1 at the rummage sale (some yahoo at Etsy has one for $18). That little radio was exactly what I was looking for, and it works like a charm. Plus, it’s stylish in a retro kind of way. That little radio fits perfectly with my kitchen. It’s sturdy enough, and if I drop and break it, I’m only out $1. But it’s the kind of thing where I can see having it for years and years. The thing has survived this long, after all – but maybe the reason it’s lasted so long is because it’s so simple.
When I’m doing repetitive tasks, I need something in the background to listen to. Put the radio on, and I’m up for anything. But if it’s not on, it’s easy to get distracted. Turning my brain off means having music, and so this new GE radio is going to be perfect.
Sometimes, fancy is great. Having the Internet on my phone is wonderfully handy, and goodness knows I get plenty of use out of my iPhone.
But then simple can be all you need just when you need it. My dad just wants a phone to make calls. I just want a little radio to carry around the house with me. Easy. Simple. Perfect.
I’m an amateur soccer player, an amateur cook, an amateur skier, designer, racecar driver, and flyfisherman. And I’m happy to be an amateur at all of those things. Actually I LOVE being an amateur at all of those things – it allows me to dabble, make a ton of mistakes, goof around, drop the ball, not care when something else might be distracting me etc.
Being an amateur at those things means I can be comfortable. It’s safe. There is no fear of success or failure.
We often do things that we regret when we’re out of our heads. Drunk, in love, low blood sugar – whatever the reason, something causes our brain to reboot, usually the day after, and look back on our behavior in horror.
But at concerts, at least we’re doing things we regret with other people. It’s fine to act like a screw-loose reptile when everyone else is just as goofy as you.
Look around you. See all those people screaming their heads off? See how they’re gyrating and dancing in a sea of other lunatics? Notice how they don’t care who’s watching, because (probably) no one really is?
That’s why I go to concerts: to utterly lose myself in the songs I love. These kids, just like me, were having the time of their lives – and they didn’t care who was watching.
The difference is that my enjoyment didn’t stem from the music on stage. No, it came from the kids losing their collective minds. This is why I want to take pictures. They mean something. I mean, look at them. They’re in ecstasy.
Not on Ecstasy, mind you. No, there’s something about a collective musical experience that makes drugs or alcohol totally redundant. Who needs booze when you have grooves?
It makes my heart ache to see these pictures, the day after, and realize what fun we all had that night. They’ll remember the songs and their friends singing along.
I’ll remember that look on their face.
As I learn more about photography, I learn from and listen to and read what those who have Been There Before do.
And one of the easiest little tools I’ve found? Flickr’s exif data.
For instance, I really liked Jorge Quinteros’s coffee shop shots. Digging into the one with the guy at the table, you can see Quinteros’s exact camera settings. Here, he set the camera in aperture priority mode at f/2.8 at a 28mm focal length with the shutter slapping at 1/40 speed.
If you search through enough Flickr photos, you start to learn how great photos are made. The composition and editing are the artistic parts, where philosophy and style come into play. But in the numbers, you can learn a little bit about how to make cool pictures.
Kim Høltermand, Deserted City . . .
If I could pick a style, it would be this. Sadly, fog doesn’t appear as often as I’d like.