Zack Arias has been bitten by the medium format bug and for good reason. The images that a medium format digital back can put out are amazing. I’ve long been a fan of Zack’s work and look forward to seeing where he goes next now that he’s working slower and bigger.
Renan Ozturk captures Jimmy Chin working on a story for National Geographic about climbers in Yosemite. A wonderful mix of documentary, stills, video, and time-lapse.
Michael Williams at A Continous Lean just reviewed the new Luma Labs Cinch. Quote: “I recommend this strap even if you already have something you think is good. I guarantee the Cinch is better.” That’s a ringing endorsement. Read the whole review.
I meant to just sample this and see if it was going to go into my queue. An hour twenty one later and, well, I’m linking it. Oops, but no regrets. Heartily recommended. Or maybe you should check the trailer first. You know, for the integrity of your schedule.
The latest update to Final Cut Pro X just arrived with multicam and the ability to put photos onto a timeline based on timecode. I’ll be shaking this out ASAP. If it pans out, it will be a key tool for something that I’ll be working on at TED2012.
PhotoShelter’s Allen Murabayashi rants about photography and sees everything good in it despite Getty, Corbis, equipment envy, and guys who copy that other guy.
Stuart Sipahigil muses on perspective: “Focusing only on gear is a shallow pursuit. Focusing only on technique is a shallow pursuit. Focusing only on making money with your camera is a shallow pursuit. Our “passion”, as it stands, cannot be just photography itself.”
My version of this thought is: “Ok, you’ve got your chops. Now what?”
I love the conveyer system at B&H in New York. The first time I walked into the store years ago, I visually traced out the route that my purchase must have taken. (via Swiss Miss)
SOPA and PIPA might be on hold, but they weren’t the only things that big content was working on. ACTA, the Anti-Counterfiting Trade Agreement, has been negotiated in secret over the last few years and is being pushed through the approval process in many countries, including the United States. (via @catenary)
Can an image that is a stylistic rip-off of another, but which doesn’t copy the first one, be an infringement? A judge in the UK has ruled just that, despite there being no implication that the second image is a duplicate. (via Pinar Ozger-Hannon)
To see which states get more money from the federal government than they get charted out against their predominant political orientation is fascinating. (via @bwjones and @brainpicker)
Seven BASE jumpers took the sky from the top of the Marina Bay Sands Skypark on New Years Day 2012. When I was there earlier this month and saw the view from on top of the building, I immediately thought of friends I know that BASE jump and thought they’d get a blast out of this.
How well do you discrimate colors? This fun little game will let you know, though I’d run through it at least twice so you get a feel for the way it works. (via @brainpicker)
Joe McNally shifts gears into video mode with this mini-doc of Little Freddie King who has been singing and playing the blues in New Orleans since he was 14 years old.
Scott Beale had a chance to drop by A Startup Store and check out the goings on at Coffee Common x NYC. Looks like it was a great space and a wonderful event.
Mike Johnston posed a question from a reader on the Online Photographer site which comes up now and again: “As an aside, a semantic question. Why do we ‘capture images’ when using digital, but ‘take pictures’ when using film? I see this all the time.”
While I don’t make a fuss about what other people call the process, I’m fairly pedantic about this in my own words. I don’t take photos—I’m not acquiring something that already existed and I’m certainly not stealing anything—nor do I capture them like some kind of wild animal. When I pick up a camera and decide what to frame and how to expose it, I’m creating something that didn’t exist before and bringing it to the world. I’m making it.
Going deeper into the argument, words have meaning and shape the way we approach the world. If I pick up the camera with the intent of capturing something or taking it, then my actions are likely to follow. I’ll push the button and just be happy with what I get. On the other hand, if I put myself into the mindset of making something, well, hopefully my actions will follow and instead of getting lucky in capturing a moment, I’ll have a chance of being successful in creating one.
Semantics? Of course.
At the end of the day, you can approach photography with whatever term you like as long as you’re getting what you want out of it. Me? I make photos. That’s my aspiration and goal.
Credit where credit is due: Clay Enos is the guy who made me think about this with the name of his blog and how he signs off his posts.
Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty met on Vimeo and came together to create a stunning time-lapse view of Yosemite National Park. Beautiful.
Daniel looks at the eye-raising terms of the iBooks Author EULA in comparison with the even more onerous terms imposed on authors by traditional publishers.
Clay Shirky rebuts David Pogue’s admonition to tone down the alarmist rhetoric over SOPA and PIPA. As Clay says: “The risk now is not that SOPA will pass. The risk is that we’ll think we’ve won. We haven’t; they’ll be back. Get ready to have this fight again.”
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Where’s the older stuff? Consider it offline for the foreseeable future. Things happened. It’d take time to get it back into the system. Time I don’t have right now. I’m not going to cry about it. Neither should you.
