Posts Tagged: weblog
August 20th, 2006
Google has publically launched Writely, a free online word processing application. It writes PDFs, will publish directly to your blog, has collaboration tools including subscribing to an RSS feed of a document), automatic off-site backups and more.
It is, of course, an impressive application, but I’m not sure if it will usurp Word as the de facto word processor. It seems everyone already has a copy of Microsoft’s offering. Writely may not take off, but perhaps it will have the positive effect of inspiring some improvements in the software we already have. I mean, it’s not like Microsoft doesn’t like to update their products. This may just mean that there are actually some relevant additions to the next release.
Though I did, in fact, use Writely to create this post and it worked fairly well. It didn’t include the title of the document, but it warms you that this feature may not be supported. It also used breaks instead of the paragraph tag for the html, so that was a bit unusual. Since I typically use paragraphs, I edited the post’s HTML after the fact, but I suspect most people won’t notice or care. Not to mention this just came out - a few improvements are probably already on the way.
I didn’t expect to be switching over to a new method of posting to this site, but it was worth a test. Now that I have made that test, I know for certain that I will be sticking to my trusty Wordpress administration panel.
August 5th, 2006
Just thought I would let you know that I am alive and well in Australia. I’m here in Darwin where I have been suffering from a bit of sticker shock after being in Southeast Asia. Internet access, for example, costs four or five times as much here, so I haven’t been online nearly as much. Once I work my way back into first-world prices, I’ll be more content to post a bit more.
The last week has mostly been spent job hunting and adjusting to all these white people speaking English to me. For the former, I’ve found a temp job that starts next week and for the latter, the quirky Aussie accent is sometimes weird enough that I can pretend people are speaking a foreign language to me, so it works out well enough.
After departing my lovely little private room that I obtained through some contacts I made before coming here, I now have been relegated to the land of dorms when other house guests took my spot. After last night’s endless snoring competition, I’m hoping that the fatigue I have saved up will let me sleep through the worst of the din tonight. I’m at a new hostel and I have fewer people in my room, so I’m hoping I may serve as a participant in the contest tonight and not just a listener.
July 11th, 2006
I was only able to spend a few short days in Osaka when I was travelling through Japan. It seemed, even more than Tokyo, the very definition of ‘urban.’ Many people have a vision of Japan as a futuristic, modern city that covers virtually every inch of the archipelago and if they only visited Osaka, they would be justified in believing that.
The photos I have uploaded include images of the Osaka Skyline, the Dotonbori Shopping and Entertainment District and The Umeda Sky Building. When time permits, I also have images from Osaka castle and Osaka Aquarium that I intend to process and upload as well, so stay tuned.
And as always, a few samples:
July 4th, 2006
I still haven’t seen Bangkok. I’ve been here a few days now and I haven’t wandered too far from my guesthouse. And I’m okay with that.
I have as much time here as I want, so I’m biding my time, waiting for the weather to cooperate. It has rained every day that I have been here, though certainly not all day. It’s been those tropical storms that charge into the city hoping to catch unsuspecting vendors off guard so that wares might be blown away or soaked.
When it’s not raining, it’s threatening to with spitting drops randomly reminding you that the sky is boss and you better pay attention to it. Combine that with the overcast clouds that still manage to let enough sun through to harshly light the scenes on the ground and my camera just doesn’t want to come out to play.
So, I’ve worked and I’ve wandered. The processing of my backlog of photos is progressing nicely as I sit in a room free from distractions. No Internet, no TV, no people. Just me plugging away at images I shot long ago. Until I go out to shoot new ones, I have plenty to keep me busy.
June 30th, 2006
This post marks my departure from Japan and a return to travel for me. That means that I won’t have the opportunity to waste endless hours scouring the Internet for all things photographically interesting. Instead, I will now shift back into travel writing mode (and I hope that’s at least somewhat interesting).
My upcoming plans are vague and mutable, but here’s the gist: I will be leaving Japan on July 1st and heading back to Thailand. My return ticket takes me to Bangkok where I will spend a little time photographing the city. When I first swept through the metropolis, I took a stroll up and down Khao San Road, and that was about it before heading off to other parts of Thailand (and many people have said I made a wise choice).
But, I will have at least a week or two to spend in Bangkok and/or nearby destinations inside Thailand. That may turn into a month depending on how much I’m enjoying myself.
When my Thailand fun is finished, the plan is to head down to Australia. The cheapest entry point is Darwin - one of the most Northern cites in the country. I’ve been told that there’s not much good reason to stay in Darwin, so I expect to quickly buy a ticket out of Dullsville (if that’s what it turns out to be).
But that’s where the planning ends. I mean, I don’t even have a guidebook for Australia yet. I just know that soon after arriving in the country, I will likely be putting that working holiday visa of mine to use with whatever job I can find. Prices down under are going to come as a shock to my stretched budget, so I expect to be temping/fruit picking/working construction/dreaming of a photography job/whatever work I can find sooner than later.
I aim to keep posting fun stories and adventures on a regular basis, so I hope you’ll come back and keep up with me.
June 17th, 2006
If you have a free afternoon and you’re looking to practice both your portraiture and your people skills, you may consider having a look at photojojo’s guide to impromptu street photos. Just grab some poster board and a handful of small rewards for your subjects and you are on your way to meeting new people and getting some fun shots.
With the summer season upon us, you may be lucky enough to have an air show appearing somewhere in your region in the near future. Digitaldarell.com has a detailed guide to shooting air shows that will help you to capture all the action. The only thing I would add is that you shouldn’t forget to point your camera at the events on the ground from time to time. You may find yourself able to get some interesting shots of the planes or their pilots when you take a break from craning your neck upwards.
The gravity-defying MonsterPod looks like it would not only be a fun toy but also a practical addition to the camera bag of anyone looking to support their compact camera or external flash in a bizarre location. This small, red camera support has a strange, morphing underside that allows it to stick to most surfaces and hold a 10 ounce camera or flash. Weird, but potentially-useful stuff. For $30, it might be worth it just to see how the thing works.
Lastly, iView has updated its MediaPro photo management software to version 3.1.1.
June 13th, 2006
What do you do when you have to shoot, process and capture images of 18 tennis matches in one day with no list of players to guide you? This post on Blue Pixel has a detailed look at how Reed Hoffman overcame the tight deadline for this hectic day with an efficient digital workflow.
June 12th, 2006
Angkor Wat was one of the most magical places I have had the good fortune to visit. The spectacle of the temple has endured for centuries, but I can’t even imagine the grandeur of its appearance at the height of the Khmer empire. To witness Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, the Bayon or any of the other spectacular temples in the region when they were full of the life of their creators would be a worthy destination for any time traveller.
As it is, without defying the laws of physics, visitors can feel transported backwards to a different era. Yes, most of the bodies populating the temples are tourists, but it’s easy to look beyond them when the scenery is so gorgeous.
I have recently finished processing some of my photos from the area and I have uploaded them to dsphotographic.com. In the gallery section, you will now find images of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, and also a gallery of photos featuring the different monks I met at Angkor Wat.
These are, of course, only a few of the sets of photos I have available from the region. As I process photos, more galleries will be available.
Read more about my time spent in the Angkor region here and here.
Lastly, here is a taste of what you will find in the galleries:
June 9th, 2006
More than once a day, I wonder if I am working my way into the right business. As though the travel photography market wasn’t already terribly competitive, the rise of crowdsourcing has made the business that much less profitable for professionals.
This Wired article on crowdsourcing explores the issue of micro stock photography’s role in the diminishing profits of professional stock shooters. This is a central issue right now in the world of stock photography and I have often witnessed heated debates on message boards when the the two sides have met.
Good discussion on the issue can be found at the site of author of the above article (Jeff Howe): crowdsourcing.com. In particular, a good discussion can be found in the comments of the site’s mission statement.
As a professional photographer, I have a bias against the micro-stock sites, but it’s not merely because of the smaller profits for the pro shooters. Just as outsourcing tends to have an exploitative side to it with third-world citizens being paid a pittance for their work, the crowdsourcers, in this case the amateur photographer, gets a similar pittance. Hobbyists are content with $1 sale and the knowledge that their image has been used by someone else. What many of them either don’t know or don’t care about is that their images could fetch much higher prices for similar uses.
The amateurs, however, do not rely on the income generated by their photos. Their day jobs pay the bills. Extra dollars from micro-stock sales are a happy bonus. Too bad there seems to be so many cases where these bonuses are snatched from the hands of the professional photographers whose livelihood depends on traditional sales.
June 8th, 2006
New York Times tech writer David Pogue has a ridiculous story from one of his readers. In it the reader tells a tale about how Target Photo Centre refused to sell her the prints she had ordered.
This person had ordered prints online and went to the store to pick them up, but instead was greeted with the following:
“The very sweet young girl found my envelope, but it had a note attached to it. The note said, ‘Ask for Copyright release for the 2 pictures lying on the dryer rack.’
She called for assistance, because she was unsure what to do. The person who answered her call ALSO called for assistance, because she also did not know what to do. A third woman arrived.
She told me that because of copyright concerns, Target reserves the right not to sell any picture that appears to be professional. She said, ‘Anyone can just download any picture they want, and we’d be liable. I’m sorry, we will not sell you the prints.’
‘I proceeded to explain to her, as I had to the sweet teenager and the assistant, that one is a picture of my husband, and the other has ME IN IT with a camera! Surely that doesn’t appear to be professional staging. The manager reiterated, ‘I’m sorry.’”
As though any decent photographer needed any extra excuse not to use Target for their photo processing, this probably clinches it.
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