Photography

Getting a bit more serious about Picasa

Picasa (Google’s picture service) has a lovely Windows application, which will try to run in Wine in Linux.  But I really prefer to explore native Linux apps if I can - it seems like cheating not to figure them out.  So this is an attempt to upload photos to Picasa using F-Spot:

From photo album biosphere

This picture is from last week. I set down my coffee to take the picture, of this dormant hornet.  I’m an endotherm wearing a jacket, but he had no such advantage.  He just had to stay there and get his picture taken like a chilled little bug.  (Click through and open the full-size version.  His wings are really quite lovely)

Posted by George on 10/01/09 at 08:33 PM
Geeky • Photography • (8) Comments • Link

Henri Cartier-Bresson in Chicago Tribune today

It’s incredibly cool that the Chicago Tribune published a full-page article on Five things to know about Henri Cartier-Bresson today, and it is a nifty article as far as it goes.  But never once did they mention “The Decisive Moment”, the fundamental concept in HCB’s photography.  It would be like writing a full-page article about Ansel Adams and not mentioning the Zone System, or about Eugene Smith and not mentioning his courage as a photojournalist.

But you can see the entire film documentary; The Impassioned Eye online in 10 parts at the Rollfilm blog.  Hear Cartier-Bresson say (in French, with translation) that photographers should “aim well, shoot fast, and scram”.  Hear his comments as he sheafs through his photos.  Learn about him seizing the moment from the stream of events, with his tiny Leica camera. Enjoy! 

Posted by George on 09/21/08 at 11:05 AM
Geeky • Photography • (1) Comments • Link

Rainbow around the sun

Saw this as I walked out of the building on my way to lunch today

And I mean, I saw exactly this because it was necessary to cover the sun with my hand, to see the rainbow.

Posted by George on 09/19/08 at 01:12 PM
Geeky • Photography • (4) Comments • Link

Camera one of two

A while back I asked readers for suggestions on what camera to buy.  And several very thoughtful suggestions were made, some for cameras I had not considered.  I carefully checked out each one, and many thanks to everyone who shared suggestions!

When I used to shoot film, I had several cameras to meet different purposes.  I had an Olympus XA, a tiny 35mm rangefinder with an outstanding lens that I could carry with me everywhere.  I had several Olympus SLR’s and lenses (all fast primes) to handle a wide range of situations from flat-field macro to portraits.  I’ve owned a couple different 6x6 TLR cameras for when I needed waist-level viewfinder. 

Over the years I’ve done a lot of different kinds of photography.  Long ago I did wedding photography but after several weddings decided it was just too stressful.  The kinds I really enjoyed included portrait, product, documentary, candid street photography, scenic, macro, and for want of a better term, ‘fine-art’.  Each has its own (often overlapping) technical requirements.

Eventually it became impossible for me to spend time in the darkroom, and I went all-digital.  But no single digital camera can do everything.  So it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll need more than one camera.  My friend Pete has an Olympus DSLR and the image quality is simply outstanding.  But I pretty much live on a bike and his camera is too large for my backpack.  Also, I really like a waist-level viewfinder for macro and candid photography.

A couple readers suggested the Canon S5 IS, which I had not heard of, and that’s what I wound up getting.  It has a 12x zoom, image stabilizer, excellent macro capability, face recognition, and a folding viewfinder that allows waist-level photography (Joy!). It also has an internal eye-level viewfinder.  Plus, like any modern digital camera, a million other features which may be occasionally useful but hardly essential.  I will wind up using the panorama effect a lot…

Continued...

Posted by George on 08/31/08 at 12:08 PM
Geeky • Photography • (4) Comments • Link
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