- Nora: Only trains, Daddy! No hop, no jump, no swing, no slide. Only trains!
- me: Nora, it's only 30 more sleeps 'til Christmas.
- Nora: oooooooh!
Yelping with Cormac: The Apple Store
Union Square - San Francisco, CA
Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM
Two stars.
Given the way my uncle died havin a drink directly after his funeral just didnt seem right so I went for a walk instead. One of them downtowns where all there is is stores. Came across a store was a big…
Musings on digital vs analog photography
This morning in the car, my thought process* drifted to my old 35mm camera, and I starting thinking about digital vs analog photography. I suppose part of it originated at my daughter’s birthday party yesterday, when I commented “I like digital over film, I can just take as many photos as I want.” Now, this was while I was shooting 10 or 15 action shots in a row of her tearing tissue paper out of a gift bag, but today it’s got me thinking.
Is digital really better than film? Granted, there’s the obvious arguments in favor of digital: virtually limitless space on your “roll of film”, easier and faster to see end results, easier to share, lots of fun details like EXIF and geotagging. But the neo-luddite part of me (which is definitely tiny but sometimes very loud) remembers how much fun it was when I was dating the lady who later became my wife, and we went to the botanical gardens. I shot 3 or 4 rolls of some 100-speed Kodak film, and most of those shots were pretty good; excellent depth of field, some pseudo-macro shots of flowers (I used a plain old virtually-stock 25-90mm lens), and some excellent long shots of Heather in front of a waterfall. I actually thought about the composition of each shot before I pushed the shutter, and as a result I got some excellent photos. And I actually have memories of taking some of those pictures.
With digital, I remember the event, but I rarely think about the effort I exerted to actually take the picture. It’s more along the lines of “take as many pictures as I can, pick the ones I like, and clean up any problems in Photoshop.” This morning, I’m not sure if that’s the way I always want to think about photography.
* Thought process: I saw a bumper sticker that I couldn’t read, so I thought I’d take a photo of it and blow it up in Photoshop when I got to the office. Then I realized that my windshield was dirty, and I remembered my dad talking to Andy about how blurry photos usually come from dirty lenses. I remember commenting at the time that a flash helps if it’s only a speed-of-the-camera issue. I remembered that even with a flash I still have lots of photos of Nora that have crystal-clear backgrounds and blurry daughter. Which brought me to analog photography, and manually setting my depth of field and focusing on the actual subject.
PHP CBViewer 0.4 released after 2 years. Film at 11.
I developed version 0.1 of php_cbviewer in 2008. Various contributions later, PHP upgrading to librar 3.0, and an upgrade to OS X Lion that wiped out my php customizations, and I was forced to upgrade my own installation of the software. And I figured I’d pass along the new version for the few people who actually use it.
It’s Nora!
Goin’ out on the town with my lady.
The following day, I attended a workshop about preventing gender violence, facilitated by Katz. There, he posed a question to all of the men in the room: “Men, what things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?”
Not one man, including myself, could quickly answer the question. Finally, one man raised his hand and said, “Nothing.” Then Katz asked the women, “What things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?” Nearly all of the women in the room raised their hand. One by one, each woman testified:
“I don’t make eye contact with men when I walk down the street,” said one.
“I don’t put my drink down at parties,” said another.
“I use the buddy system when I go to parties.”
“I cross the street when I see a group of guys walking in my direction.”
“I use my keys as a potential weapon.”
The women went on for several minutes, until their side of the blackboard was completely filled with responses. The men’s side of the blackboard was blank. I was stunned. I had never heard a group of women say these things before. I thought about all of the women in my life — including my mother, sister and girlfriend — and realized that I had a lot to learn about gender.
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Why I Am A Male Feminist (via newwavefeminism)
This reminds me of a gallery opening I was volunteering at awhile back, for an exhibit of art based on domestic violence. The speaker told a story about a workshop he’d been to where the instructor asked the audience whether they’d rather walk on the side of the street with a stranger, or the one with a barking German Shepard. The men chose the stranger; the women chose the dog.
(via evewithanapple) (via hopesichord)
(via itswalky)
Garden, round two. This time, featuring a pumpkin and Serrano chiles in addition to the cucumbers.
