In the middle, in the middle, in the middle of a dream

I lost my shirt, I pawned my rings

I’ve done all the dumb things

I melted wax to fix my wings

I’ve done all the dumb things

- Paul Kelly

I am a big fan of Paul Kelly, the Australian balladeer, and somehow, after the process of upgrading my desktop to Windows 7, I feel a particular affinity for this song.

I decided, after watching all the commentary on Windows 7, and talking to my friends who are serious geeks, that it was probably something I could do for myself. I’ve never upgraded a Windows operating system before, although I’ve done it with Macs (it is dead easy),but there is a time and place for everything. So why did I decide to go and do something as stupid as putting Windows 7 over the top of my existing Vista SP2 installation? Perhaps it was an urge to melt wax to fix my wings (an Icarus moment again!?)…

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Sony A900, ISO 100, 1/80 @f8, Zeiss ZA 24-70 @ 48mm

Working in a darkroom for 20 years can make you a little sensitive to black and white. I suppose all that time shuffling paper in trays of developer, smelling fixer, and inhaling selenium toner fumes, not to mention hanging out with Richard Poole, can lead to a certain constriction of the vision and a strengthening of the opinion. Or, put another way, to being old school and proud of it.

I don’t do darkroom any more. About seven years ago, after 20 years of sloshing chemistry and living in a dark space, my body finally told me it had had enough. This is not unusual. If you do this long enough, sooner or later your body is going to rebel at being in proximity to all those nasty chemicals. Mine certainly did, and the symptoms were a combination of swollen joints and a decidedly hung-over feeling. So I gave it away. Anyway, whatever darkroom nutters may say, it’s infinitely more civilised to sit there with a glass of wine and press the print key. So be it.

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Tiresias

I often wonder why so many of us are drawn to photography.

I never cease to be fascinated by the reasons, by the motivations, and by all the myriad-and-one reasons why we take up photography. Over the years when I ask people why they have do it, some have answered confidently, while others have dithered and become tongue-tied. There is no question in my mind that occasionally the reasons I asked those questions were as much for my own benefit, to explain it to myself, as it was to hear what you had to say. I apologise to all of you who thought I was genuinely interested in hearing your particular reason for being in photography, when what I really wanted to hear was an answer to my own question. Such are the ways of ego.

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Kia ora tatou:

This blog post arrived in my inbox this morning…Often I am asked by people curious about turning their hobby/passion into a career whether they should do it.  Or not. My mentor, Richard Poole, when asked the same thing, would usually  tell the inquirer not to be so stupid. I, on the other hand see it differently.

Somewhat differently.

This email by leading pro, Joe McNally, kind of sums it up…

Letter to a Young Photographer….

Lectured last week at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. In the photojournalism department, the students all had that traditional mix of energy, enthusiasm, angst, and doubt so typical of that time in your life when you have just picked up a camera and are looking at it, wondering where it will lead you. The usual mix of questions are ever present: Who do I work for? Can I make a living? Will I ever be any good at this? Will my pictures have impact?

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Sony Vaio VGN-AW37GY

Kia ora tatou:

ASP stirred the pot a week or so back  in suggesting that the Sony Vaio laptop ( hereafter referred to as the BBB-Big Black Box) I took to Africa may have found its way under a Namibian dune, because I hadn’t said anything further. Well it hasn’t, and I probably need to a do a review of that as well. Frankly I  have never reviewed a computer before. I read reviews, but have never written one. It would appear that time has come. but first some ground rules.

1. This will get techy at times, but frankly  I am more interested in how it performs and whether it will support rather than hinder me. So this is an end-user review. People who need to know stuff like hyperthreading ability and on-board cache won’t find any of that stuff here. Go Google….
2. I use a PC but I have spent time with Macs. I like both. Neither operating system is perfect.  I tend to push my computers really hard and I have found that Mac’s can get just as slow as a PC. So I use Windows-based machines, because there is enough under-the-hood control fo me to be able to keep them at peak efficiency for me. I prefer using a PC because they are (bang for your buck) more affordable.I know many pros prefer Mac but I have yet to see the advantage. Mac fanbois, feel free to weigh in below (some evidence would be great!).  and since this is the Paragraph of Contention, may I add here that I have been a fan of Vista since its inception, and especially since SP2. It just works, and it does not clog up like XP, requiring a full reinstall every year or so. I love the interface for one thing.Finding files in a desktop with 8 Hard drives and a total of 6 TB of storage is not easy, but Vista makes that a breeze. Of course there will be some amazingly useful plugin which makes XP friendly and justifies continuing to keep the corpse alive…. Feel free to share in the comments section.

There it is. Let us move on.

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