How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?
Today is my wedding anniversary - 7 years and going strong (we're been together almost 10 years now). While that might seem romantic, New Years Eve is second only to Valentines night as amateur hour in the city. Trying to get a table at a decent restaurant is next to impossible and you wouldn't really want to be out there even if you could. New Years on the town is for 20-somethings not us.
Instead, we're about to go out to brunch and an hour or two's photo safari together (weather permitting). This evening we'll be hanging out with friends - maybe watch a DVD and play a round or two of Scene-it. If I get a few minutes I might make some resolutions to break in the near future - less coffee, use the credit card less, take more pictures, apply myself better at work, run more - nothing new / typical stuff.
Whatever you have planned may you have a happy and safe New Years and a fulfilling and successful 2007.
I get that it has something to do with Flickr's Explore and interestingness but why did this particular shot get hit while those around it get their normal number of visits and how did it get picked up in the first place? The picture was taken two days ago when I took my wife to the Golden Gate Cemetery in Colma (how romantic eh?) to help her get her feet wet with her new camera. This Cemetery is my photographic stomping ground. When the light is right it is hard to take a bad shot there. The repetition with slight variations lends itself to both wide forced perspective-like shots and tight telephoto crops equally. It was my wife's first visit so we spent a couple of hours there while I whittered on about composition, quality of light and exposure.
As I said, I have taken very similar shots to this before. I have a very architectural, graphic (some would argue boringly mathematical) eye. My wife sees faces in pieces of wood and rabbits in the clouds - I see hard patterns and symmetry everywhere. As these compositions are obvious to me I allow myself to take them so that I can move past them and then stretch myself. In this case I much preferred this shot I made of the graves with a plane and the moon in a vivid blue sky above them - it was typical of my style and it said something less obvious to me about life going on and the mystery of death.
But what do I know? The shot I like has been seen 12 times - the more obvious one, 87.
Oh, Merry Christmas everyone BTW - I'm sitting here in my robe (dressing gown for those from the UK) waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. Turkey goes in at 10 - dinner at 3:30pm if all goes to plan.
... I'm tired; there's just too much to do and not enough waking hours in the day. The in-laws arrive tomorrow and I'm stuck at work recovering from a stinking cold that sapped my energy levels. I've still got some presents to buy and mucho grocery shopping to do. My wife won't be happy until the fountain in our back yard is running again (her parents haven't seen the new back yard and she wants it to be perfect for their visit) and let's not mention the stuff I'm supposed to have completed at work and for the home owner's association.
Every year I have good intentions of going into the holiday season prepared and organized and every year I stagger out the other side dazed and confused with the feeling that I some how just got away with something and survived another one.
With all this chaos and expenditure of energy comes a lack of creativity; I haven't taken much more than a snap or two in a week. It's not that I haven't picked up a camera, just that I've picked it up and put it down in frustration and disgust a few minutes later. Still, I know Santa has a new camera in his bag for me - the new Rebel 400 Xti to replace my current main camera, the original digital rebel. Also, we don't have much planned between Christmas and New Year and I'm taking the whole week off so hopefully there'll be time for a few photo safaris in between watching movies and other commitments. Roll on Tuesday!
Another of those "you'll only get this if you're a certain age and English" clips I'm afraid... It is amazing what you can find on YouTube.
Why? The fact that it is a great documentary is one thing. The fact that it is about a talented, eloquent, dedicated, mysterious and moral photographer is another. However, if I had to pop this in the DVD player I would have watched the movie only a couple of times. The fact that I carry it with me almost everywhere means that I have seen it many more times than that in small chunks.
If I'm feeling uninspired I'll sometimes find a quiet corner and watch 10 minutes to get fired up. If I think I'm getting too big for my boots I'll watch 10 minutes to remind myself how crap I really am.
I don't want to be a war photographer or even a photo-journalist and yet I learn something every time I take a few minutes to watch a clip. It's not the technical stuff but the attitude, drive and commitment of Nachtwey that makes me want to watch this documentary over and over. It is interesting to watch a real professional move and work in the field from a camera's eye view. It is also interesting to see how those captures become prints with a photo editor, or images in a magazine or on a gallery show's walls. The draw for me is Nachtwey's utter conviction, commitment and sacrifice to what he does. He shows the western world the uncomfortable truth about what is going on in the world. To do that he has given up a normal life and normal relationships. He has had success but the movie shows that what he has seen has changed and molded him. Remarkably he doesn't seem to have become a cynic and he's not an adrenaline junkie but there's something behind those eyes, something that makes those pictures, something created by the suffering and inhumanity Nachtwey has born witness to.
If you haven't seen War Photographer, especially if you have an interest in photography, make time to watch this documentary. It is the best film about a photographer and/or photography I have seen bar none. I cannot recommend War Photographer enough but be warned, it doesn't make a great date movie.
A Vox neighbor commented on a previous post asking how I liked the Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens I had just bought. In answer, here's a preview of a review I was working on:
I don't think anyone is going to argue the point that the kit lens that comes with the APS sized sensor Canons is a great lens. It's cheap and does an OK job but even if it was tack-sharp it would not be my ideal walkabout lens. I need a bit more reach on my photo haunts so the first lens I hunted down after getting the kit lens and the 50mm f1.8 (undisputed bargain king) was the 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 USM lens.
The 28-105mm gave me the reach I wanted and the quality I was looking for for a good price ($140 secondhand from Craigslist). It felt more solid and more like a lens should and yet was very compact and useful. I was happy with this lens for a couple of years and then a friend of mine, with more disposable income than me, decided to go traveling for 12 months and decided not to take his 24-70mm f2.8L lens with him so I had this classic and legendary lens in my own camera bag and at my disposal for a year. It's a great lens even though it is expensive and heavy, and is ideal for portrait and low-light work. A year with a borrowed lens flies by and it wasn't long until I had to return the beautiful L-series glass. Going back to the old 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 was slow so I started to look around for a more affordable alternative to the red striped lens. I looked at the third party manufacturer's 28-75mm f2.8 offerings that cost less than $500. They are tempting and I may get one as a portrait lens in the future but as a walkabout lens they are just a bit to limiting for me. The 24-105mm f4L IS looks great but was out of my price bracket.
This left only one real choice; the Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 USM IS ($270, again secondhand from Craigslist). It's an older designed image stabilized (IS) lens but the IS still gives you a stop or two extra hand-holding ability. Compared to my old 28-105 it is huge; compared to the 24-70L it is small. It is pretty solid and heavy with professional features like a metal lens mount, focusing scale and a full-time, manual focus ring. On the other hand, it has more consumer like composite construction than the L-series' metal rigidity. It's plastic nature is sometimes noticeable with the zoom ring being a little staccato at times, especially when compared to the L-series' liquid fluidity. All in all, construction is enthusiast-solid, not professional-rock-solid and not consumer-plastic.
Comparisons in the image quality department are similar. The 24-70mm is legendarily sharp so it seems a little unfair to compare the 28-135mm with it side by side. When removed from the Pepsi taste challenge, images from the 28-135 are impressive. I had read line-counters who claim it is marginally sharper than the 28-105 but the difference is so marginal that I could not notice it in real world situations. So why upgrade then? The IS really works. If, like me, you can't afford the f2.8 but sometimes find yourself in light that demands that speed then the IS is there to help you out. Not that IS is a total substitute for f-stop speed, it can't stop motion blur just camera shake, but does help. Actually, it more than helps. IS can become a bit of an addictive crutch. Pick up any other lens and you start to wonder why your pictures are soft hand holding 100mm at 1/30.
That extra 30mm of reach comes in handy too when you're out and about. In a full-frame equivalent world the lens behaves like a 45-216mm zoom; that's a standard lens to a pretty decent telephoto. It's not going to pull in wildlife from far away, or be wide enough for many street or architectural photographers but in that unfashionable focal range between the two it is very useful. It has become my default lens; the one that's on the camera 75% of the time. It's not perfect but every lens is a series of compromises. As compromises go, the 28-135mm is a pretty good one.
My standard zoom conclusion? If the only lens you currently own for your Canon is the kit lens and/or the 50mm prime and money is an issue (isn't it always?) the 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 is a pretty good bargain (currently $230 at Adorama). Just make sure you get the f3.5-5.6 not the cheaper f4-5.6 or you may be sorry. If you already own the 28-105mm is it worth stepping up to the 28-135 (currently $410 at Adorama)? If you need a little more flexibility in low-light, then maybe, but if you use it mainly outdoors during the day, perhaps not. I leave formal lens tests to men with more free time than I have but to my eye there's not much in sharpness, contrast or color accuracy between the 105 and the 135. If portraits are your main thing but the 24-70L is a bit spendy check out something like the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 ($370 at Adorama). If I had a grand or more burning a hole in my pocket I'd get the 24-105mm f4L IS for sure. Until that day the 28-135 works for me.
Links
The other day, waiting for my takeout order and extremely bored, I went
browsing through the notepad entries in my PDA and I found an entry for
New Year's resolutions for 2006. This was a bit surprising as I can't
remember writing it; don't make New Year's resolutions drunk kids! As
we're already racing through December it might be a good moment to take
stock though:
- Print and frame a photo a month - I think this was something to do with taking pride in my work. Didn't happen.
- Publish a photo 3 times a week on my photoblog - If you average it out over the whole year I am sort of on target for this one.
- Pickup the guitar once a week - does dusting count? Maybe next year I'll actually get back to playing.
- Run 3 times a week - I was trying to ramp up from twice a week - again, didn't happen as I had a little knee trouble.
- Press a shutter release at least once everyday - at least I kept to the spirit of this one and there are photos in my image management software from nearly every day in 2006.
One show that there was no arguing about was the Morecambe and Wise show. They were a beloved English institution and during the 70's they were on the top of their game. Theirs was a very English sense of humour (I have to use the 'u' in this circumstance). Not as crude as Benny Hill or as absurd as Monty Python, they were great leveler; everyone loved them from the Royals (they both were awarded OBEs) to the dustmen. Their comedy contained a lot of pathos, musical numbers, slapstick, irreverence and wise cracks with glamour provided by their guest stars. Their show was part variety show, part comedy sketch show and part situation comedy. It's actually surprisingly hard to describe. They always had a Christmas show which was broadcast on Christmas evening with a huge percentage of British families huddled around their tellies watching; it was always loaded with stars and laughs.
A couple of years ago, in the pre-youtube era, I tried to describe Morecambe and Wise to my wife. She didn't get it and I'm not surprised because they have to be seen. I went searching the web for this particular sketch but it wasn't available then. Now I can share it with her and you. I wonder if she'll get it now; do you?
Show us something seasonal.
