Tag: photos

Western Digital Has Officially Acquired SanDisk

Seth Anderson0 comment

Digital imagery, or as some still call it, photography, would not be possible without powerful, fast portable storage devices, such as those made by SanDisk and Western Digital…

Zoey Getting Ready to Vote in the Nature Photo Contest
 

Our New Storage Overlords: Western Digital Has Officially Acquired SanDisk:

Seven months after announcing the planned acquisition and one quarter ahead of schedule, Western Digital has officially acquired SanDisk, “creating a global leader in storage technology.”

In case you weren’t aware of how big of a deal this is (speaking both literally and figuratively), WD is happy to drive home the point in this announcement released May 12th:

The addition of SanDisk makes Western Digital Corporation a comprehensive storage solutions provider with global reach, and an extensive product and technology platform that includes deep expertise in both rotating magnetic storage and non-volatile memory (NVM).

Translation: all hail our new storage overlords.

(Via PetaPixel)

SanDisk 32 GB
SanDisk 32 GB in my Camera

and via Dow Jones:

Western Digital Corp. on Thursday cut its profit projection for the current quarter to reflect higher debt costs tied to its $19 billion acquisition of rival SanDisk Corp. this month.

The Irvine, Calif., disk-drive maker now projects 65 cents to 70 cents a share in adjusted profit for the quarter that ends July 1, compared with its earlier view of $1 to $1.10 a share.

…Western Digital, the largest maker of computer disk drives, is seeking to build on SanDisk’s position in the growing market for flash memory chips used in smartphones and other devices.

On Thursday, Western Digital officials re-iterated during a conference call with analysts that they are ramping up production of 3D flash technology, which is expected to become the mainstream data storage.

(click here to continue reading Western Digital Cuts Quarterly Profit Projection Following SanDisk Acquisition – WSJ.)

Favorite Photos from January 2013

Seth Anderson1 Comment

I’m vowing to do a better job of posting my personal photo favorites uploaded to Flickr each month. I started this last year, but then got lazy, and didn’t post every month. Yadda yadda, 17/83 is 20%…

Archives / Posted in / 2013 / January (83 items)

(click here to see more  Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in January 2013.)

Lusty Leaves Quite Gone

Lusty Leaves Quite Gone
Lincoln Park

Not Everything Matters As Much As You Think It Does
Not Everything Matters As Much As You Think It Does

I Know You Want To Dance Polapan Blue
I Know You Want To Dance Polapan Blue

Kodak Cameras and Film
Kodak Cameras and Film

I’ve Waited Patiently For You
I’ve Waited Patiently For You

Do Just What You Used To Do
Do Just What You Used To Do


Urban Melodrama
Urban Melodrama

The Muttering Retreats of Restless Nights
The Muttering Retreats of Restless Nights

Don't Let Me Change Your Mind
Don’t Let Me Change Your Mind

Elevator to Gallows
Elevator to Gallows

Murphy Car
Murphy Car

Ice Age in the West Loop
Ice Age in the West Loop

Passing Strangers
Passing Strangers

Your Forgotten Melodies
Your Forgotten Melodies

Manhattan Beach
Manhattan Beach

Union Station - LA
Union Station – LA

Dome and globe, Los Angeles Central Library
Dome and globe, Los Angeles Central Library

Email Of My Digital Day

Seth Anderson0 comment

We Deliver - Just not Saturdays
We Deliver – Just not Saturdays

If you are interested, in the slightest, in my daily travails and triumphs, you should sign up for my daily email post – automatically created via Google’s Feedburner. In this email, you’ll see my most recent ten photographs, and I will do my best to give you a few interesting articles to read every day. Ideally, you’ll see portions of 9 or 101 articles, plus a sampling of my photographs of the day.

If my work day allows it, there might also be a few blog posts as well included in the email – which are usually longer entries, but to be honest, I don’t seem to have the stamina to create blog posts each and every day any more. Basically, the email will contain items that will never appear on the blog itself – mostly because I’m a lazy fr*ck.

As far as what kind of content you’ll receive in the email, I’d guess the mix of topics to roughly be:

  • Photographs
  • 40% national US politics
  • 5% Chicago politics
  • 5% local politics somewhere else like Texas or California, or somewhere I have an interest (Baltimore, Oregon, San Francisco, New York City, Guam, Austin, Yurtistan, yadda yadda). Yeah, I read a lot. I do. Every day, usually.
  • 10% music and music history – jazz, blues, rock, Bob Dylan, whatever. 
  • 10% film and film history – I am a film school drop-out after all
  • 10% Apple related – I’ve been a Mac user since before it was cool
  • 10% humor, or what I find funny 
  • 10% weird and unusual stories from the old, weird America and the old, weird world…

Truthfully, the email is a simple communication tool, and you should go ahead and sign up. Even if you don’t get around to reading every single one, you’ll still find items of interest when you do read the email. Plus, the email is free…

What do you have to lose?

Footnotes:
  1. the Feedburner limit [↩]

Zone Focusing for Candid Street Photography

Seth Anderson0 comment

Heart-Felt
Heart-Felt

An interesting idea. I’ll have to explore this a bit.

Capturing strangers candidly, yet tack sharp, is probably the toughest technical skill to learn in street photography.

With a genre such as landscape photography, you can find your location, plan your shot, wait patiently for the correct lighting, and make sure that you are ready to pounce when the perfect moment hits.  But candid street photography is an entirely different beast.  Often, you are presented with a moment so quickly that your reaction time is severely tested.  It is so tough to frame correctly, focus correctly, and capture a spontaneous shot at the right moment, all while trying to keep things candid.

The solution?  Learning to zone focus.  Not every street photographer zone focuses, but the ones that do swear by it.  While I use autofocus when I can, I too swear by it.  And with a little practice, it’s not all that hard to learn.

Honestly, it’s way harder to explain it than it is to actually do it.

(click here to continue reading The Ultimate Guide to Zone Focusing for Candid Street Photography.)

Dancing Lesson
Dancing Lesson

Click through for some good practical advice and examples…

Buffalo National River

Seth Anderson1 Comment

My brother is getting married this fall, and instead of a traditional bacchanalia bachelor party, he decided to go on a kayak trip in the Buffalo National River Park in the Ozarks of Arkansas. I flew in Thursday night, and we left at 6 am the next morning headed toward Gilbert, Arkansas, about ten hours from Austin. We spent the first night camped along the Buffalo River,  checked into a nice, cozy cabin for the next two nights, then drove back to Austin. I left for home the next afternoon, only having enough time to eat delicious brisket at Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart, TX.

America’s First National River Established in 1972, Buffalo National River flows freely for 135 miles and is one of the few remaining undammed rivers in the lower 48 states. Once you arrive, prepare to journey from running rapids to quiet pools while surrounded by massive bluffs as you cruise through the Ozark Mountains down to the White River.

(click here to continue reading Buffalo National River – Buffalo National River.)

Here are a few photos I took – my camera (and phone) both got wet on the first day out on the river because I wasn’t careful enough. The camera turned out only to need a new battery, but my phone hasn’t yet recovered. 

Buffalo River
Buffalo River

Hipstamatic photo – the only iPhone photo I uploaded before my phone (accidentally) got wet. I meant to leave the phone behind in our cabin, but mistakenly put it in the wrong backpack. Doh! Didn’t notice it was soaked through until the next morning when I was looking for it to call home. Double Doh!

Andrew - Buffalo National River
Andrew – Buffalo National River

My brother convinced most of us to grow a mustache (66% compliance).

Continue reading “Buffalo National River”

No You Cannot Use My Photo for Free Part 88

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Gate - Buckingham Palace
Gate – Buckingham Palace

While on vacation, I received this email: 

Hi Seth, As with many, I am captivated by the quality of your work!

I am a professor writing an ebook on “Chasing Wisdom” and would like your permission to use your work entitled “Gate – Buckingham Palace” as a photograph in my book.

I propose the following credit line: Photograph used by permission. Copyrighted by Seth Anderson.

Of course, please propose a credit line of your preference if you so choose.

Thank you

 I responded:

Thank you for your consideration. My normal rate is $800 (US) for a one-time usage fee. If this is something you would consider, please send me a purchase order, and I’ll invoice you and send you the image.

Please consider that I am self-employed, and responsible for all my own costs (health insurance, electricity, and so on), and thus am not interested in working without compensation.

I’ve written more on that topic a few times, including here:

www.b12partners.net/wp/2012/05/26/reasons-why-photographers-cannot-work-for-free/

Sincerely

An ebook often has lower costs associated with its creation, perhaps I would consider a lower fee as well, but we shall see if I get a response. Ideally, I would take the time to create a form letter from these various requests, but I never seem to get around to it. 

Parenthetically, the referenced photo is ok, but I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites. I’m sure there are many, many similar photos of the Buckingham Palace Gate taken every day.

 

—

Part 85

Part 86

Part 87 

—

 

update:

Thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately, there is not budget for such permissions. I’ll look for another source.
Best

 

Favorite February 2012 Photos

Seth Anderson0 comment

Without preamble (if you want explanation, check December’s children), here are my favorite twelve photos from February. There were 133 to choose from.

Via Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in February 2012.)

Help Me Make It Through The Night
Help Me Make It Through The Night

Tell Me Why You Hurry So?
Tell Me Why You Hurry So?

And I Still Do Not Know What It Was That I've Done Wrong

And I Still Do Not Know What It Was That I’ve Done Wrong

Secret Meanings

Secret Meanings

The Wind is Still
The Wind is Still

Good morning West Loop
Good morning West Loop

Waiting For My Connection Back To You
Waiting For My Connection Back To You

Midwest Generation Fisk Station
Midwest Generation Fisk Station

I Know What You Are Remembering
I Know What You Are Remembering

Into A Single Thought
Into A Single Thought

And If You Cross Your Fingers
And If You Cross Your Fingers

Sugar Maple
Sugar Maple

Honorable mention goes to:

Had to Leave in a Hurry

When You Wake Up

Campfire Abstraction Number 9870

And The Clouds Are Going Down

Ducks Lined Up

On Your Way to Happiness

A Few Light Years Ago

Nobody’s Technidol Wedding

Hold Your Hands and Pray – Kodalith

Eugène Atget on Flickr

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The George Eastman House has released 97 historic photos taken by French photographer Eugène Atget to The Flickr Commons1. Awesome stuff.

Purporting to make photographs not as art, but as documentary aids to artists, Eugène Atget left this world with an oeuvre that captured the transformation of Paris at the turn of the last century. Although Atget is now heralded as a canonical figures in the history of photography, his humble beginnings and methodologies during his photographic career attest to his simple desire to record his city as he knew it.

Born in 1857, in Libourne near Bordeaux and raised by his uncle, Atget’s youth was molded by his time as a sailor. Upon his return from the sea, Atget turned to the stage and pursued an acting career in provincial cities and later in Paris suburbs. After minor success as an actor, Atget abandoned the stage and at the age of forty took up painting, then quickly turned to his true life’s work as a photographer. For the next thirty years, until just a few short months before his death in 1927, Atget undertook a systematic documentation of the city of Paris, creating approximately five thousand negatives and nearly ten thousand prints.

Because he refused to work with the latest advances in photographic technology, Atget’s images evoke a sense of timelessness, due in part to the slower exposure times and the pre-visualization of the final image that was required. Atget produced glass plate negatives, using an 18 x 24 cm. view camera that was fitted with a brass rectilinear lens and had no shutter. Rather, Atget would simply remove the cap from the lens and capture the scene before him, allowing any motion to appear as a blur. Atget carried this large camera around Paris as he worked to document its essential elements: streets, shop windows, building facades, architectural details, and the landscape of the public gardens and parks in and around the city.

Atget’s unique documentation of the French capital captured the eye of surrealist photographer Man Ray who worked to promote Atget as one of the pre-eminent photographic modernists. Later, the efforts of Berenice Abbott, who acquired Atget’s negatives and prints after his death, finally situated Atget’s work in the history of photography where it continues to gain in stature and influence.

[Click to view photographs by Eugène Atget – a set on Flickr]

The best way to view these photos is to click on the slideshow option, and be transported.

His photographs really blazed the trail that I (in my humble fashion) and so many of my Flickr compatriots follow: taking photographs of the city we live in, warts and all. Photos of strangers on the street, of shop windows, of public art, signs – all of these are subjects I revist over and over.

Footnotes:
  1. no known copyright restrictions [↩]

Reading Around on July 6th

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading July 6th from 08:35 to 14:46:

  • Boston to debut ‘killer app’ for municipal complaints – The Boston Globe – “they think they’ve hit on something big: a “killer app’’ that marries 21st-century technology with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s old-school devotion to pothole politics.

    City officials will soon debut Boston’s first official iPhone application, which will allow residents to snap photos of neighborhood nuisances – nasty potholes, graffiti-stained walls, blown street lights – and e-mail them to City Hall to be fixed.”

  • President Obama’s first 167 days – The Big Picture – Boston.com – “U.S. President Barack Obama has now been in office for 167 days, and it’s time for a look back. Why 167 days? Why not – it’s just as arbitrary a number as the usual “100 days”. In that time, President Obama has contended with stimulating the U.S. economy, reshaping U.S. policy abroad, and starting work on domestic issues such as health care reform. As he and his family arrive in Moscow today for an official visit, find here a look back at some of the first 167 days of the Obama administration. (38 photos total)”

    Barack Obama is the centrist Democrat we thought he was, and I have several policy disagreements with his administration already, that said, still am charmed by the man. So many of these photos make me smile.

  • The Brick Testament – “Ever performed a magic trick for your friends? Committed adultery? Worshipped an idol? Are you cowardly? How about filthy? Have you ever told a lie? If so, bad news. You are going to be ceaselessly tortured for all eternity.Good news, though, if you are a male Jewish virgin. A lucky 144,000 of you are going to get to live on the New Improved Earth with Yahweh”

Reading Around on March 9th through March 10th

swanksalot0 comment

A few interesting links collected March 9th through March 10th:

Nelson Algren Avenue

Reading Around on January 26th

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading January 26th from 10:22 to 22:31:

  • The Washington Monthly – This Explains a Lot– “On the one hand, the Bush administration released some detainees who apparently turned out to be pretty dangerous. On the other, the Bush administration refused to release other detainees who weren’t dangerous at all, and were actually U.S. allies.How could this happen? In light of these revelations about the lack of files, it starts to make a lot more sense.But to put this in an even larger context, consider just how big a mess Bush has left for Obama here. The previous administration a) tortured detainees, making it harder to prosecute dangerous terrorists; b) released bad guys while detaining good guys; and c) neglected to keep comprehensive files on possible terrorists who’ve been in U.S. custody for several years. As if the fiasco at Gitmo weren’t hard enough to clean up.”
  • The three primary roles your local website should play | yelvington.com– “Journalists tend to gravitate to only one of these roles: the town crier, the quaint colonial-era village character who walks around ringing a bell telling you what’s happening. It comes naturally. This is why 24×7 coverage teams and the “continuous news desk” concept take root so quickly when newsrooms suddenly awaken to the urgency of taking the Internet seriously.
  • But the other roles aren’t secondary. They’re coequal, and they’re grossly neglected by most local news websites.Moreover, they consistently surface in qualitative research as poorly met needs. The language people use is a little different, but recognizable: “Help me connect with people.” “Help me get answers I need.” “Help me find people like me.” “Help me pursue my interests.”
  • drop.io: simple private file sharing, free internet file sharing – Hmm, seems useful
    “Use drop.io to create drops and privately share your files by web, email, phone, fax, and more. Drops are protected from search engines so you can conveniently share what you want, how you want, with whom you want.”
  • Undercover Black Man: Bad news for David Milch fans– “Now I hear that HBO has pulled the plug on Milch’s latest project, a New York City cop drama set in the 1970s called “Last of the Ninth.”They filmed a pilot episode… with British actor Ray Winstone (pictured) as one of the leads. Evidently HBO was not digging it.That’s a show I wanted to see. Since the ’90s, Milch has talked about creating a series based on Bill Clark’s early career in the NYPD.

    Clark spent two years undercover as a white radical. He hung out with Black Panthers (including Tupac’s mama).”

  • Food Is A Weapon
  • Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Errol Morris Blog – NYTimes.com– Awesome! “Photographs make this somewhat more difficult. They are a partial record of who we were and how we imagined ourselves. …The traveling pool of press photographers that follows presidents includes representatives from three wire services — AP (The Associated Press), AFP (Agence France-Presse) and Thomson Reuters. During the last week of the Bush administration, I asked the head photo editors of these news services — Vincent Amalvy (AFP), Santiago Lyon (AP) and Jim Bourg (Reuters) — to pick the photographs of the president that they believe captured the character of the man and of his administration. …. It is interesting that these pictures are different. They may be of the same scene, but they have different content. They speak in a different way.(The photos are reproduced here with their original captions, unedited.)”
  • Tijuana Bibles– “If you are offended by depictions of sodomy, bestiality, “alternative sexual practices,” racial and ethnic stereotypes, or just about anything else, you should leave now.Tijuana Bibles were pornographic tracts popular in America before the advent of mass-market full-color glossy wank-fodder such as Playboy. A typical bible consisted of eight stapled comic-strip frames portraying characters and celebrities (eg. John Dillinger, Popeye, Disney characters) in wildly sodomistic situations. Many could be considered grossly racist, sexist, and otherwise wholly “politically incorrect.” Browser discretion is advised.”