ljplicease | Entries tagged with dcc

The other day, someone at work asked me (not entirely out of the blue), if I “had anyone useful” in my family.

Without missing a beat I answered: “No, they are all scientists.”

Because it’s true, at least in the context of the conversation, which made the question more like do you have anyone with skills that are useful to ordinary people in your family. I mean, they contribute to the sum of human knowledge, and arguably do important things, but hardly useful skills, such as being able to cut hair (like Nina’s husband) or even fixing a Windows XP machine full of viruses that you stupidly downloaded (like me. er, the fixing part, not the downloading of viruses part).

“But wait,” I added, “it gets worse, because I grew up in a company town, where the ‘company’ was a federal laboratory, and everyone who lived in the town were also scientists.”

Later, when I was explaining this conversation to my mum (who didn’t seem to find it as inherently funny as I did), she pointed out to me that there are also engineers in Los Alamos.

“Well, they can be useful.” I said.

“Not those engineers.”

Mum seems to hold engineers in the same esteem as people who live in Melbourne (“seriously,” I can imagine her saying, “if you are in Australia, why wouldn’t you live in Sydney?”).

I know this attitude sort of filtered down to me, unfortunately, because early on when I met my friends in New York who also worked at The Company, I said with some disdain that I wasn’t an engineer, when one of them described us as a group of engineers. I have always preferred the term “programmer” or “coder” (which is actually different from what my friends do), although I do have to admit my job title was “software engineer” for those six years in New York.

They are pretty cool engineers though. They do things like make the processors that go into all of the next generation video game consoles. (When the dust settles from this round of the Console Wars, I don’t know if Sony or Nintendo will be left standing, but either way The Company stands to make a tidy profit either way). More importantly, they are cool people, who know how to have a good time and be good friends.

I told my photography teacher what my friends did once, and she thought those GPUs The Company was making were a waste of resources that could have been more appropriately allocated. Seriously though, who is she kidding, she is a professional photographer. What is she contributing to the world that is so awesome that she can go around judging other people? There is nothing wrong with being a photographer, but there is everything wrong with being judgemental and condescending.

So today I was looking up the Presidential order of succession on Wikipedia today, because that does, after all, effect my day to day life a lot. Then I somehow found the POTUS page, which has presidential portraits at the bottom of the page from Washington to Bush II. It’s interesting to look at because you can see how the official POTUS portrait changed with technology over the years, but also you can see the emergence of the Smile!

If you go back in time and look at Washington and Jefferson, you see dour, somewhat gloomy expressions. I guess times were rough back in those days. Men were men, women were women, and nobody smiled. Ever. It really isn’t until the mid twentieth century that presidents start to look happy. JFK looks bemused, Carter is chipper, Regan looks pleased with himself, and Bush I has this dorkish senior photo smile plastered on his face. Fast-forward to this century and Bush II has that infamous smirk on his face. Like him or loathe him, he’s going to have the last smirk.

In my lighting class I had a discussion with a fellow student as to whether or not smiles were good for photos. I took the position that they are, although I should qualify that by saying smiles are nice for formal portraits. I hate it when I am taking candid photos of my friends and they stop to smile. When I first started taking photography seriously, my friends would stop and smile every time I pointed the camera in their direction, but fortunately this became tedious for them and thus trained them to ignore me. It’s much more fun to be a fly on the wall. So it is kind of ironic that I argued that smiles are good for photos.

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

( Read more... )

In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.

I was looking for this photograph that I took for B&W I at Dutchess in the summer of '03, and discovered that I couldn't find it on my web site. This troubled me somewhat, so I've decided to post it here. It's not really fair to post an old photograph without including some story though, so I will include some text to go along with it. Feel free not to read it, and just look at the pretty picture though :)

Teacher's Pet

I wasn't even going to print this one, but my teacher recommended that I did. I thought it was only ok, but I included it in my final portfolio because I knew that my teacher liked it. I thus christened the photo "Teacher's Pet." I was a bit of a teacher's pet in that class. She was a savage critic and grader, which is the best way to learn, but some of the students didn't appreciate her style. I liked her, though my grade was not of much concern for me. I was in the class to learn how to work in the dark room, nothing more. Although I didn't initially like it that much, I have come to appreciate it more over time.

I have finally gotten around to posting on-line portfolios for two recent projects.

New York City	Decay

Please take a look at them and tell me what you think. Last year I took mostly black and white, this year I have seem to have been focusing on color. Unlike my B&W NYC shots, these NYC photos are not really street photography... they were actually a creative interpretation of a landscape assignment I had for Color1. Most of them anyway, I threw a couple more in there after taking the class. The rust shots are all digital... totally experimental. I enjoyed playing with the colors in Photoshop. For you purists, I didn't introduce any colors that were not already there, I just adjusted the RGB curve, contrast and saturation to make them more vibrant.

I was down in the city again yesterday, specifically to photograph the reflections in buildings using my 100mm macro lens. I wanted to isolate small areas where two textures intersected, as my most successful photograph from Color1 was of this genre and I wanted to explore that further. (I will most likely eventually post the photograph, but I am still deciding in what form to present it and the pictures which go with it).

One of the neat things about NYC (for me at least) is that I often run into professional photographers working. I think it is natural for photographers at every level to check out what equipment others in the field are using. As described in Shutterbabe (see last entry) there is a sort of pecking order. Pros use Nikon or Leica, locals use Minolta or Olympus. (What does that make me? I use both Nikon and Minolta equipment, not to mention the TLR Rollieflex).

In Grand Central Terminal I saw a photographer with a medium format camera (not a Hasselblad, but nothing to be scoffed at either) photographing a pair of models dressed as you might see in a fashion magazine (next month, you probably will see them). With all the noise and the hub-ub, I probably would not have noticed them at all, since the photographer was up on a different level than the models and shooting down on them, except that the photographer was setting her camera exactly where I had planned to set my camera to do one of those highly cliché pictures of GCT in black and white with some people blurred and some not due to a long exposure. I can't remember what kind of camera she had, but it got me to thinking (again) that I really would like to have my own medium format camera. I want a Hasselbald though, since that is what I learned with in my lighting class and the glass the lenses are to die for. Can't afford it though.

Then as I was out doing the real work I had set out to do (down in south Manhattan) I passed someone with a Leica. Leica make these really high quality 35mm range finder cameras with incredible optics. I wouldn't mind having one of those either. Can't afford that either though.

The coolest spotting ever was one day I was going to see the Concord with a friend of mine, and we passed by Jesus Christ being photographed by a photographer with a large format view camera. Forget about Jesus for a minute though, that view camera was cool. It's so big and bulky that you carry it around with a large tripod attached because you really can't use it without one it is so big and heavy. I had seen a view camera once before, but not one this big. It probably exposed 8x10 negatives. That's 8 inches by 10 inches. You could easily blow up a neg or slide that size to cover the side of a small building without noticing any grain. Can not even come close to affording that one. Guess you have to choose your economic battles.

About a month later I was looking thorough one of those tasteless men's fashion magazines (which I do sometimes to critique the photographs) and right there was Jesus Christ walking through Manhattan. One of the shots was at the very same location we had seen him at too.

I've been meaning to get back to a story I wrote about some time ago about nin (nine inch nails) some time ago. For those of you who care to read what I wrote earlier here it is: [ short entry about me trying to sell one of my old nin acquisitions on eBay ]. If you don't want to read that, don't worry, it essentially says that I was troubled by the behavior of the bidders to my auctions, apparently nin fans, but in the end I decided to give one particular bidder (a Canadian, so I suspect he talks funny) the benefit of the doubt.

Denmark: My Prison (in focus)

So in the end somebody finally won this auction for four nine inch nails CDs and I send off an invoice, waited a few days, sent a reminder notice, waited a few days, sent an extremely polite eBay message asking the buyer to pay up, or at least contact me, waited a few more days and finally filed a non paying bidder complaint with e-mail, waited a few more days and still heard nothing. I sent an offer to the next highest bidder (our Canadian bidder) and posted negative feedback for the non paying person. The first time ever, I really didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had run out of alternatives. I was planning on re-listing the item the next Wednesday, which was only a couple of days away, since I hadn't heard back from my Canadian bidder about the second chance offer.

The next day I got a message from the winner of the auction apologizing and saying that she had sent payment via PayPal. I checked my account and sure enough I had received my dough. This left me a little uneasy, because I had a second chance offer out there to my Canadian bidder and only one set of discs. I wasn't sure that it would end well if he decided to take the offer, and I wasn't sure if I could cancel it. It all worked out ok though, because I was able to cancel the offer and sent this stern message to the winner (and now paying) bidder:

I really wish you had contacted me sooner.  It said quite clearly
in the listing that payment needed to be received within ten days.  I
was about to relist the item.  Anyway, since you have sent me the money,
I will be posting you your CDs first thing tomorrow.  Thank you for
taking care of this.

...and the next day I posted the CDs. Mind you, all of this was during the most stressful part of my Color1 class: preparing for my final portfolio, so I was already ripping the hair out of my scalp because of work and school.

Denmark: My Prison (out of focus)

I started writing this story out at one point, but the whole thing seemed rather angry, and I wasn't in the mood to sound angry, because I don't think I was particularly. Then I forgot about it, but I was looking at someone's profile on-line yesterday. Boredom had set in I think, and usually I hate it when people have music playing on their web pages, like this one did, but I stopped for a minute to listen to it.

Sound a bit like a bad nine inch nails rip off... I thought to myself I wonder who it is. I found the place in the page where the music was playing. In this case it was actually a music video. I pulled the temporal navigation slider back to the beginning of the video to see if it would tell me who the band was. Nothing there. Then I tugged the widget back to the other end of the song to see if that would offer any clue. There was nothing there too, but in this case it was spelled out for me:

For those of you who don't know, don't remember, or more likely don't care, Trent Reznor's label is Nothing Records. Ahhh... I thinks to myself so this isn't a bad nine inch nails rip off, it's just a bad nine inch nails song. There would have been a time when I could not have accepted the thought. I would not have been able to utter a sentence which included the term bad nine inch nails song. Fortunately, my tastes in music have become less dogmatic, and maybe even more refined. I still listen to nine inch nails on occasion. I think my favorite song has got to be Reptile - I would still like to write a demo to that music - but my devotion is obviously not unquestioned, as evidenced by the fact that I was even selling off part of my collection. And oh yeah... the fact that I listen to Trent on the order of once every few months instead of several times a day as I did back in 1995 (which as some of you already know was the 1985 of the 90s...)

Denmark: My Prison (interference patterns)

A friend of mine a while back essentially told me that my taste in music was, how shall I put it? Well let's just say that my taste in music is apparently "gullible." My initial reaction to this was amusement, because, it is such a silly "Ha-Ha" thing to say. After all how can my taste... my preference... be gullible? You can be gullible enough to believe that the moon is made of Swiss cheese, or that this gentleman here owns and can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. You can't be fooled into liking trance or rap or country or any other form of music, either you like it or you don't. Even when I described my taste as being dogmatic, I do not think I would be so insulting as to call my taste in music gullible. Which is how I sort of take this narrow minded kind of statement now: insulting.

Even if you are more "expert" in a subject than someone else it's quite obviously unfair to apply your standards to someone else's taste and expect them to take it as a friendly act. I see nothing wrong with being critical of a piece of art, for example, if you are a movie critic and are not critical enough of Titanic to write a poor review then you are clearly not doing your job (that is just my opinion... Man).

I visited a friend recently in an apartment which she had just moved into, so when I discovered that she had hung up on her wall one of my black and white prints, I was honored. Ahh... was actually my first thought of the prints I gave you, you chose to hang the most cliché. Instead of saying that thought, I simply said that I was honored. Now, admittedly it is easy to say something nice in place of something insensitive in this sort of situation, but pretty much in any situation if you are creative you can say something nice when socializing with your friends, and when you can't maybe you ought not say anything.

I suppose that means I shouldn't have said the last three paragraphs. Pretend you didn't read them.

Today was the first day of my photojournalism class. Most of the students were in my lighting class in the spring. Apparently we are supposed to come up with a project idea. I have three weeks. Any ideas?

Note: I originally wrote this early in the morning on August 4 for another site, but I am particularly pleased with it, so I am reposting it here to get total coverage. I've only made a few additional corrections.

I did this once before, almost ten years ago. Thought it was time once again to write about my old friend RC.

rc3: another day in the life of robert cobbler

3 August 2004 / August 3, 2004

By the time I got into my car to... I would say go to work... but the fact that I am going to work today seems almost incidental... but anyway, by the time I get into my car to go to work I have already been up for almost 3 hours today. I got up extra early to photograph a still life for my second assignment which was really due yesterday, but I had forgotten to take the film out of the fridge last night so I spent an hour going through my writing desk searching for the title to the Toyota so that I can get Green's Auto to haul the thing away so I don't have to spend money on it. Right now that car is costing me money just sitting in my driveway and it has to come to an end. By the time I have confirmed that I really don't have the damn title anymore and that I will have to deal with DMV, the film is ready to shoot, but I still am not. I can't think of what to shoot. The content of my writing desk is scattered across the floor neatly organized into categories. The largest pile is stuff to throw away. The batteries I found stored in the desk are lying about and I imagine the Energizers confronting the Duracells in a medieval conflict. A couple of candles become castle towers in my mind. It seems the dumbest thing I can think of, but I arrange this ten second fantasy into my still life assignment.

I finish photographing the still life on time, and this is when I get into my car to start my day which already seems to be progressing. What I have to accomplish seem to add up to something larger than 24 hours, and even so I manage to forget three somethings in a row, each time having to turn around and drive back home to get it. Each time I seem to get further, which seems like progress, although it is really more work because it's longer to drive back. First I forgot my medication. Then it was my Australian passport application. Then it was the CD I had sold on half.com and had to post today.

( read more... )

I dunno why I even am writing this. I don't have time to do this shit no more.

There have been busier people in the history of everything, but probably not my special combination of laziness, business and unfulfilled expectations.

Class is going well, despite the the fact that apparently no one in the class has ever used a computer before in their lives. I know I know... not everyone uses a computer for a living. Lucky bastards.

Oh... but it is going well for the most part. I removed the power cabls from this photograph:

What else? Hiking tomorrow. Farewell to another friend on Friday. Homework over the weekend. Oh yeah and work too.

I was in Houston over the long weekend, visiting an important friend. Think I mentioned this whilst I was out there. I don't know why I get accused of always seeming to be go somewhere (I think Ian (of photo lighting class fame) usually make this charge). I only went as far as exotic New Paltz for a birthday party this weekend, and I don't have any genuine plans for the weekend coming up. At least, as the sierra interpter used to tell me: Not Yet. I miss going to class every friday and hanging out, and incidentally doing some photography. It was such a pleasant experience with such fun people that it was hard not to enjoy the week. I think I'm beginning to forget what actual photographers are like.

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On being useful
POTUS smiles
I Cannot Be Hurt by Anything this Wicked World Has Done
Black and White One
Things I Like to Photograph
NYC and Photography
nin, revisited
Photojournalism
rc3: another day in the life of robert cobbler
So Where Was I?
New Paltz = Birthday Fun

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The Twilight Report

Your Home For Snappy Repartee

Entries tagged with dcc

On being useful

POTUS smiles

I Cannot Be Hurt by Anything this Wicked World Has Done

Black and White One

Things I Like to Photograph

NYC and Photography

nin, revisited

Photojournalism

rc3: another day in the life of robert cobbler

So Where Was I?

New Paltz = Birthday Fun