In Photos dot org

What backup medium lasts 50 years and will be as easy to restore in 2056 as it is now? Mike Johnston writes that computers and backup systems are too complex today and that, “we shouldn’t all need to gradually become full-time archivists” to hold on to precious memories for decades. There are some great comments, and Mike has summarised a few of the ideas expressed in a follow up post. I may even purchase that DAM book.
What is that medium? I don’t know, but it was prompted by Mike’s story when he was cleaning up a bench in a darkroom:

“On the floor behind it, in all the dust and spiderwebs, I found a strip of three 120 negatives. The picture in the middle was of a nude woman in one of those 1940s-style pinup poses that hide as much as they reveal.

Naturally, I cleaned off the negative and made a print of it.

It wasn’t a very good picture, and the negative had been underdeveloped. The point is that it was at least 50 years old at the time, and it had lasted all that time—not only without pampering, but in the absence of human care of any sort.”

Here’s yet another photo processing effect that may be destined to become yet another over used style on Flickr: The Sin City Style draws inspiration from the artwork of Frank Miller’s Sin City.
The example image is as gritty and powerful as Miller’s work and hopefully someone won’t write a Photoshop plugin or action to automate it. At least not for a week or so anyway.

Ed Carreon shares the travel tips he and other professional photographers have learned over the years while abroad. Even if you’re just going on holiday, then the health tips here are worth a read. (via)

Oscar in the grass

Oscar sitting patiently for us while we finished a bbq at my sister-in-law’s house!

This required quite a bit of work because I had to clone out his lead, 3 garden chairs and the side of the bbq. Is it obvious where?

Rock Landscape

Limpits cling tightly to a rock in Church Bay.

The Swan Gang

Tough looking swans gather for bread at the Lough in Cork for bread.

The problem with shooting dangerous wildlife with a wideangle lens is that unless you stick the camera in their faces nobody will believe you were risking life and limb by leaning down right next to them when shooting. Well, I was that close. *gulp*

See how the swan in the background is lunging for his neighbour with a wicked looking snap? He wasn’t the only one doing that!

There are holy wars in every field of human endevour. Vi vs Emacs, C vs Java, film vs digital and of course RAW vs Jpeg.
For several months last year I shot in Raw+Jpeg which was great. gThumb displayed a thumbnail for the Jpeg file while I also had the RAW negative. Yes, great. Until I got tired of opening the RAW file in my RAW converter (bibblelite, ufraw-gimp), before opening in the GIMP. Then there’s the space requirements. I shot 85GB of images last year. I need one of those terrabyte RAID servers Joe mentioned the other night at that dinner!
Ryan has done the same, shooting in Jpeg now.
Doug Pardee has too. He explains why too. He hasn’t got time to do the extra conversion required given the volume of shots he takes.
And of course, Ken Rockwell shoots Jpeg. He has a very lengthy post about his choice.
Still not sure? Read Tommy’s post for a rebuttal to Ken’s article. If you agree with him (and he makes plenty of valid points), then you should shoot RAW.

I’ll still shoot RAW, but only at special occasions. We’re going to a wedding next month and I’ll certainly be shooting RAW there!

Clinging Flowers

Flowers cling to the rocks in Church Bay, Co. Cork.

Post processing: curves, channel mixer, blurred layer and layer mask, lomo and unsharp mask.

Purple Flowers

Purple flowers that crept into my garden from next door. I’m not complaining because they’re very pretty!

Old Rope

Old rope tied to a rusty old screw embedded in weather beaten mortar at Church Bay near Crosshaven.

I used to dive off this rock about 10 years ago, mind you the tide was in whenever I did!