Sunday, August 3, 2008


I was struck with the conversations on some bulletins boards where people use some words rather loosely. Sure I'm being a curmudgeo because it's often easy to determine what they mean from the context and sometimes I get picky about words, being an old-school film photographer and learning to write in graduate school where specifics matter. So, the fuss?

Well for one, to me, the difference between the words photo(graph) and image, which is why I make the distinction.

A photograph has several definitions but mostly it means the original capture, the film itself. The second use is to describe a print, but now can mean a Web (digital) image, which is what's meant when someone says, "Nice photo." They're referring more to the idea of and in the scene than the medium.

While you can be specific when viewing slides or negatives, the general definition of photo(graph) means both the scene and the film, an inclusive definiton where the viewer is referring to both the scene and the exposure. They're meaning the whole of it, the photograph as seen at the time and captured in the film.

An image is the digital variant of a photograph, but has varied meanings. For one, it's the original digital capture, the digital image from the original raw or jpeg file from the camera. It's not the same as a film photograph because you can't alter film once processed, which is close but not the same as a raw file.

It doesn't apply to a jpeg unless it is the unaltered original from the camera. I try to do the same since I shoot jpeg's 95+% of the time. For images I want to archive, I make a copy so I can work on one to wherever it takes me with it and still have my original image, even trash it if I don't like it and start over.

A second definition of image is the digital workflow, the image, either from the original camera image or the scanned digital image of film, used with photo editors to produce the final medium image, which is a Web or digital display image or a paper/publication print.

Scanned film and digital camera images have different workflows though production process with the photo editors. But the goal is the same, to produce the display you want, which leads to the third variant of image, the non-paper display. This is because it's almost always these days in a digital format including the display.

The definition of print is self-evident, meaning it's a photo or image on paper. But, to me, it varys calling it a photo or image based on the source of the original capture. But a traditional darkroom print is just a print, no qualifier are necessary, history has and should still call them prints. I prefer to use digital prints to qualify those over traditional methods.

In the end, where photographers lump the idea of photo and image into one concept, and then merge them into the the same conceptual workflow to the resultant display or print, I make distinctions, from the source through the production to the final product.

So, if I ask questions about a photographer's photos or images, I just want to know the distinction. It's not a judgement or being snobbish, just informative to understand.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

NPR - Going Back

I've heard the rhetoric of many flavors about the importance in our recent history of 9/11 and the aftermath that has happened in politics, religion, socio-economics, ad infinitum, or ad nauseum if you choose. And I for one am tired of it. I want to go back to 9/10 and live life as then. It's not what the pundits, politicians, religious leaders or whomever says about going back or 9/10. It's about living and freedom.

And not fear. After 9/11 we lost our edge. We became vulnerable, but more importantly we became human, the same as the rest of the nations and people on this planet. While terrorists struck upwards near a thousand times a year around the world, we were free of those attacks, only vulnerable from home grown ones. We joined the rest of the world of victims that day.

We so easily forget the Oklahoma bombing was an act of terrorism by a terrorist against the government. But we didn't lose our pride and humanity, it made us better. So why did 9/11 turn our world so upside down?

Have we forgotten Pearl Harbor, the worst act of terrorism in our history, far worse than 9/11? Yet, we didn't lose our pride and humanity, it made us stronger and wiser. So why did 9/11 turn us inside out, our fear now worn like an overcoat?

Or have we been deluded by politicians and leaders selling us fear in the name of an agenda for power and control?

Could we still be a nation, country and people without all the "national security" we've implemented since 9/11?

I answer yes, and I say we would be better now than we are now with all the "national security." I say this because I challenge people to stand up to terrorists to say they haven't changed us but made us better, wiser, stronger and more human. We won't changed our values for a bunch of thugs.

But we have changed our values for a bunch of thugs, but the thugs aren't the terrorists we should fear, but our own government. Our own government is now the terrorist in the room, treating every citizen as a potential, even possible terrorist with our police state against it's own citizens.

If our political and military leaders had worked with the UN and focused our efforts on Afghanistan, it would be over. The whole world would be different, and while we would haven't solved the problem of Iraq, we could then we more productive and efficient means for less money. After all we tolerated him for 30 years before, a few years more woudn't hurt.

And now we've spent over $1 Trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan for what? And endless war? We'll in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets did when they invaded and occupied the country before we even can talk about withdrawl. And we supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda then, the same forces we're fighting now.

No one can dispute Iraq wasn't the threat from 9/11 and was a total distraction for political purposes that's blown up in the faces of those same leaders who are trying to scrape all the foul-smelling shit of this war off their face and clothes and put it on us, you and me, in the name of patriotism. It's doesn't matter who wears it, it still smells, and I won't wear it.

I want the freedoms we had on 9/10 and make the FBI and other agencies do their jobs to find and fight terrorists. It could have all been done without the obvious police and military bravado and all the money gone to private contractors and corporations for profits than results.

We don't need the Patriot Acts of any flavor. The government just needs to do it's job. More on surveillence and indefinite detention of citizens isn't necessarily. That's what the courts are for, investigate and prove it. It's brought us this far without the big brother police state we now have. And we're paying for it. But for what?

Because the government thinks every citizen is a terrorist and be treated as one? Is that what 9/11 is all about? Us?


I was reading an article recently in the New York Times which gave a definition to the word walkshed, "The area that can be conveniently reached on foot from a given geographic point." Since taking up walking while my trusty, dusty van was in the shop in August, I've been walking a lot more, even parking the van for days. I've begun to really amazed how much we use our cars far more than is really necessary.

During my short, 6-9 mile roundtrip, walks I found people were going somewhere and back in the time I walked maybe 10-15 minutes. But then I'm as guilty as the next person as I will drive places I can walk because it's quick and easy. It's ok if I will buy more stuff than I can carry in my day pack, but sometimes it does make me think if the trip is really worth it or can I skip it or combine it with another trip.

It's interesting why this word took so long to become a word. Geographers have taught this idea for decades. I even taught it an introductory level geography class where I was a graduate teaching assistant in the mid-1970's. I got a bunch of city maps (the city had a population of about 40,000 and the university was on the southern edge of downtown). I handed them out for students to put a line on the routes they took and dots on the places they went for one week.

The following week I had them draw a line around the dots, put their name on them. The outline shows the shape of the world for the week, and if done over weeks, shows the shape of their larger world as they will often go farther and more places. The shape shows them the routes they use and places they go, but equally more important, it shows the places they've overlooked or don't know about which are only a small distance off their routes.

Then I have them hand them to the person next to them. I had them keep moving their maps so everyone saw all of them, and then we made a generalized map where most if not everyone went in terms of places and routes. We then discovered what this was telling us and where it would be useful. It was always interesting to see their views of the world expand outside their own.

And during my travels I like to talk about people's living space in the world, normally where they go by any transportation, but by walking makes interesting maps because it moves with as a layer on your wider map taken by public transportation, car, etc. Like our lives, layers on layers. And we walk using our home as the center of our universe and our car or other transportation as our portable universe.

For example, when I go to downtown Seattle I park in the same parking garage because it's easy to get to and out of downtown and it has the height to handle the van's height (6'4"). From there I simply walk everywhere and back to the van when I want to drop stuff off and go elsewhere downtown. I'll usually end up walking 4-6+ miles up and down the hills and streets. And I can stop at any one of the many cafes for a cup of coffee.

It's the joy of simply being within yourself at your pace.

I wrote this a year ago, and reading it, it's still true except the van is alive and well after being in the shop again this last spring. And the price of gas has gone up about a dollar per gallon. I still walk around where I live, to the local commercial area 2.5-3 miles away and the town 3+ miles away about once a week beside the normal running I do, albeit less as I age which I know is backwards and not smart, but that's changing.

And this last year as taught me the importance of just walking. We evolved to walk and walked throughout most of our history, and only in the last few centuries has walking been replaced with riding, and now driving. I still drive far more than I walk, it's the nature of our landscape, nothing is close anymore and we can't live within our local landscape, at least in the US.

So, after the year of walking more than I used to, it's still a nice pace and exercise.

JMO - Walmart

I don't hide my dislike for Walmart, even bordering on hate. It's the most un-American company that has ever existed. It's that simple to me. And yes, I've been to their stores, once this year because the band The Eagles only sold their CD through Walmart and their Website. But that's it that I can remember.

If I want something cheap I'll go to Fred Meyer, a regional discount store chain, but I haven't been in one of those stores in just as many years. I dislike them too because I was hired by them and then quit just as fast in 1976. I didn't like they wouldn't let me work and go to graduate school at the same time and I wasn't in Bellingham for working at Fred Meyer.

But that's wandering. The rant is about Walmart wealth in buying politicians in their effort to elect republicans. It's over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). They bordering on election violations by using their store managers to press employees to vote republican, telling them their jobs will be at risk if Democrats get elected. They're lying to their employees about the truth to get their political agenda through Congress.

But the irony is that Walmart is now splitting their political contributiions equally between republicans and democrats. In short their rich enough to buy Congress and they're doing just that, ensuring they can pressure democrats to their agenda against workers and all Americans. They almost as bad as the Bush administration, except Walmart has more money.

Walmart obviously, to me anyway, doesn't care about employees. They've lost many lawsuits over employment violations and cases with the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) for violating employee rights and federal laws. But it doesn't seem to stop these folks from pushing their corporate and political agenda at the expense of their own workers and with customers money.

Yes, the money you give them goes for an agenda against you. Is that what you want and believe? Simply because they're cheap? They're globalizing everything and if you look at the stuff you buy, most of it is made in China and the rest made outside the US. The amount of products they sell made in the US is nearly zero. Is that American?

And now they using their profits from you to push an extreme agenda forcing working wages down and living standards lower. They're not improving living standards but causing the decline of America's standards because we're losing the value of the American worker, both their employees and the rest of us.

And now they're focused on republicans but especially the EFCA. So, what is better, the right of American workers to decide for themselves or the power of ownership and management to refuse you that right? Is that American?

Friday, August 1, 2008

JMO - Pundits

Pundits aren't smart or intelligent, just loud, often obnoxious and mostly wind disgiused as words. At least nature's wind doesn't disguise itself, it is what it is and you're left to stand there and feel it. Pundits, on the other hand, try as they may, espouse opinion as fact and experiece and universal. They're neither, just words better left to fall into space never heard, a waste of energy listening to a waste of their breath.

Tough? Well, I sometimes listen to KUOW's Weekday from 10-11 am, which is the forum for local journalist to talk about the local, national and interntional issues (9-10 am is the topic on the Web page). Some of them are interesting, but some are just plain idiots.They're excellent examples of someone with a little bit, and sometimes incorrect, knowledge is dangerous as they believe themselves to be smart.

They're not complete idiots, like us all, they're smart and intelligent on some issues, but we, of most of us, don't go around writing and talking as if we're smart on every issue, and after some initial research believe we can talk about any issue. That's why they're idiots. The old adage about sometimes it's best to be silent and speak and prove yourself stupid.

One of the ones on this show today (8/1/08) talked about the issue of the Makah Tribal members who illegally hunted and killed a whale. His postiion in his column about the subject and on the show that week missed the whole point of the issue with these indians and the issue of Tribal whaling, including misunderstanding the original treated signed with the US Government and the Makah Tribe.

And in an e-mail exchange he continued to assert his view, despite sending him the link to the original treaty where it refuted his view. In only goes to show, me at least, he didn't really investigate the issue, but simply espoused a view as fact, and incorrectly at that, even in the face of the truth the basic tenet in his argument was false.

So am I picking on him? Not really, because I don't read his column and rarely listen to him on the radio. So, am I wrong? In part, yes, by focusing on a few issues I have read or heard his view. Except those I have read or heard, seem to show he cosistently misses the point for a personal position. It's almost as if he likes to see his columns or hear himself talk.

But let's not forget, verbal diahrea doesn't make you smart, just prolific. But the real point here, and yes I'm being a pundit for a minute or two, is that I should stop reading and listening. But then I would miss the chances to get angry with idiots disguised and pundits and write about them. Like me.

JMO - It's always the money

No matter what or who someone wears their religion, politics, ethics or morality on the sleeve in public, in their pockets, you'll always find the money. While people may do things for noble causes, at the end of the day, when the sun is setting and their work has been done, they still reach into their pocket to count the change. And see what they can buy tomorrow, someone or something.

Case in point, Senator Ted Stevens. He did all those "favors" for friends because he thought they were doing the right thing for Alaska, and so if he could help them, so be it. But then he wanted his house remodelled in return and he didn't have the money, or so he thought, to do the work, so he traded, a favor for them in return for a favor for him. And it's measured in money they got and the value of the work he got.

Simply put, he misused and probably, in my view, abused his office and power for money. All the rest were the icing on the cake, he got money in terms of his house and cars he didn't want to spend the money on, so, figuratively, he put money in one pocket and then moved it to the other one, except it wasn't real money in his eyes, just friends doing favors for each other. Except as a Senator, favors count as money. It's the law, plain and simple.

He deserves to be prosecuted, and if guilty, go to prison. We expect more from our Senators, except we know we can't and they're likely the most corrupt people on the planet, or at least in this country. Ethics and morales aside, they're generally good people, with the heart in the right place and cares expressed openly for their causes and issues, but when it comes to the business of the Senate, the vote for money, this or that, here or there, when or not, and how, but always money.

And it's always about a little of it in their pocket. You see they're afraid of being like us, being less than rich and struggling every day about money, not enough to live or for some survive. They afraid of being common, so they're always looking for the extra change to put and keep in their pocket, often at our expense because they live and work on our money, the taxpayers' money.

They live with the fear to overcome their fear of not having enough money. They can argue all they want it's about the work for the people, the country, and on and on. It's pure political rhetoric, because if someone held out their hand with money in it, they take it and put it in their pocket, forgetting it's wrapped in an IOU, a favor for a friend. They know it but turn a blind eye to the reality it's not wrong, but it's doing good.

Too much? Why then don't we have more campaign laws controlling money? Why don't we have more restrictions on lobbying members of Congress? Why is the Bush Administration considered the most financially and politically corrupt presidency in history? And why are all the indictments against politicians about money?

That's because politics, power, control, ethics, morality, etc. all boil down to money. It's what's left after you take away all the words about it, the money lining their pockets. All because they're afraid of being like us. Money drives a lot of people, in fact all of us. Even those we don't think do, like communes, which still need money to survive, and transients, who live off donations to survive.

Money is the obvious, "Duh." that makes life work, but it's the excess but mostly the fear, of it that drives people for more than they need, to always be in want of more. It's the fear these people have they'll put their hand in their pocket and find it empty.

NPR - Really Bad Fixit Co.

I am the owner and sole worker in The Really Bad Fixit Company. Our motto is, "We can fix anything simple with duct tape and a hammer. Everything else gets replaced."

I'm kidding but it was the idea from favors I do for a friend who runs who own businesses, a group of services and products she's trying to build into a business she can do better in live. She's the American story about the entrepreneural spirit that built this country. So I don't have a problem working and sometimes fixing small things so she doesn't have to take time herself.

I don't fix things that I know when it should be replaced and I know whatever I do to fix it, I can't do more harm because it's already at the point of falling apart. But if I can give it a life for a few more years, that's cool. And I'm not a mechanical person, so taking things apart and fixing them is a challlenge, especially when it goes back together and works better than it did.

So, I created The Really Bad Fixit Co. And our warranty is also simple, "It's guarranteed for the fifty feet or seconds it takes me to walk away. After that, you're on your own."

And while I like to find the humor in things and this idea, I'm saddened as everything is becoming global and almost everything is designed to be made and sold but not fixed. The engineers are adept at designing anything to be manufactured and assembled, but not repaired. And if it is designed to be repaired, it's not sold in parts, but components. You can't find let alone buy that one little part anymore, but have to buy an assembly, which often costs as much as the original product.

I once had a coffee grinder, a well known brand and upscale model, and while $100+ for a grinder isn't a lot, it was designed to last a lifetime, except for the one part that needs replacing periodically, the grinding wheels. When I went to buy them the authorized repair and service center said the company stopped selling that part because they wanted folks to buy a new grinder instead of keeping fixing the old ones.

They built a great product but to make a profit, had to sell more, and decided to stop repairing or servicing the existing lines of grinders. So, everyone has a grinder that doesn't grind anymore.

And this is where I find many things anymore, like the stuff my friend has. But it's sometimes interesting to find a way to make it last a few years longer. And at some point, though, some of it won't be fixable as it's too worn or parts aren't available. The reality of the times, only now globally as everything is made overseas and no one makes parts.

And The Really Bad Fixit Company's days are numbers short of consulting to say, "Get a new one."

Are photographers snobs?

I got to reading a post on a photography bulletin board. The person asked how to shoot black and white in the camera and what options were available. I wrote to use the custom picture styles to set the "color" to monochrome (b&w), adjust the custom settings (sharpness, contrast, filter and tone), and let the camera convert the raw format file to a jpeg black and white. And before I could respond, several people responded criticizing him for even thinking shooting jpeg and especially b&w in the camera.

It seems shooting raw format is the only way to be a "real" photographer anymore and let Photoshop do all the work, even overcoming your own stupidity in the field by either not understanding the scene to set the camera right or just setting it in program or full automatic mode, and then fix it later. So, where's the photographer's talent and ability with photography? They can be photography blind and Photoshop smart and still be called a photographer?

I'm not against shooting raw. It has powerful capabilities to produce some fantastic images in the hands of talented photographers. I'm just a little confused with all the technology photography and photographers have gained in recent years with cameras and photo editors, especially ones like Photoshop, that we've lost our history and the knowledge and talent of past photographers to produce some stunning and amazing images.

What's ironic with this mentality is that camera reviewers use jpeg to evaluate and judge cameras. Why? Because jpegs are consistent in their output format, so you can judge the brand/model in-camera raw-to-jpeg conversion images. Using raw format would introduce the differences due to the raw converter and changes made in the settings in the raw to output. Every Raw format converter uses different algorithims to produce different results, so it wouldn't be a good judge of the camera.

And in many fields of photography, such as photojournalist for newspapers and magazines, jpeg is the standard format, from the camera to the publication. It's because it's time and cost efficient and productive for both the photographer, editor and publisher. And any good photojournalist can produce publication ready jpegs. That's their talent and experience.

And even the latest generation of photo editors have overcome the quality lost in the many saves you do in the photo editors. All of them now are lossless, meaning nothing is lost anymore when saving images between adjustments. So you can make individual adjustments until you like what's there and not have to go back to the beginning if you make a mistake.

So, why all the snobbish arguments against jpegs? Maybe they should shoot film and have to know all the types of film and filters for every situation, and they face the photo editor when they screw up? Do they have the balls to go shoot film and show how good they really are as photographers?

Or maybe sit down with a National Geographic photo editor? And have them say, "So, let's see your original images. No, not the raw but the jpegs you shot so I can see how good you are in the field." Do you think they would change their mind, or walk out feeling either angry, saying "Boy, they don't get it." or humble, saying, "Boy, I need to learn photography."

Or will they go back to their thinking, which is the camera is the tool to get the image into the computer where they can do anything and everything. Shooting raw in the camera means you don't have to think beyond pointing and clicking. Set the camera to auto and fire away. The only mistakes you can make is if the raw format's dynamic range didn't have the latitude with the light and shadow in the scene. Everything else, including your own stupidity and ignorance, is fixable in Photoshop.

And yes, I shoot jpeg 90+% of the time and only shoot raw when I want to work on the image more than just capturing what I saw. I found my film experience was a good background to add a digital camera system with my equipment, I still take a digital and film body which shares the same lenses (both full-frame to minimize focal length thinking), so I can have both, the immediacy of digital images and the film.

And so, yes, I'm a curmudgeon, an old-school film-based photographer. But I wouldn't and won't change it, and I still find what I do best. I do photography to be in the field behind the camera and not one in front of the computer. I'm learning the latter, but never at the expense of the former. I will always focus on what I do holding the camera, everything else is extra.

And I will always criticize the photography snobs.

JMO - Avoiding arugments

Ok, we all do that, hate arugments with some people or about some issues. The old adage about talking about anything except politics and religion, and now war. And it's always interesting in many, all really, other issues, that once inside the discussion, the arugments become tense, stressful and often polarized, and you wished you had simply not walked through the tavern door, sat down and said, "So, what's everyone talking about?"

Been there, done that, and drank a lot of bitter and sour ale and listened to a lot of heated words from angry faces. And I end up going home early or shutting up and trying to enjoy my ale and the rest of the group in the tavern. This isn't to say I avoid heated arguments (debate sense) or discussions, I love them when everyone is open, honest, interesting, funny, and so on where the exchange is lively, learning, and understanding.

Ok, I'm rambling here, but then these arugments do than, mosey around an issue, looking at all its facets, and opening a dialog into its depths, or so we often think, but mostly just scratching the surface like trying to peek through frosted glass on a storefront window. But then I've been at many open forums with all the respected people that would do better conducting it at a tavern, we get about as far and will less hostility and formality.

So, what's my point? Well, this one is about umbrellas.

Umbrellas? Yes, the figurative ones some groups like to use to encompass the most number of members by whatever classification they can imagine. And then claim ownership of those people to be under the umbrella if they want to or like to be there or not. In short, they remove the choice of people to be excluded and the right of people to leave. And they wonder why they're not liked by those who don't think they belong, according to the way the world recognizes them or they identify themselves.

I've never been a group person. I make no bones about the fact I like being alone, it's who I am. I like talking with people at times, a good conversation is always interesting and you just might walk away with something you didn't know or a tidbit to explore later. And it's why I hate the use of umbrellas to describe me. I'm not them, nor necessarily want to stand under their umbrella, but they insist. And then wonder why I'm rebellous about it.

I prefer to the freedom of the rain and the right to walk my own path, not under someone's umbrella simply because they want to think it's right for some political purposes, usually theirs for some goal that may or may not help those under the umbrella and only the privileged ones under it. It's not the conscensus under that umbrella that matters, but who's holding it and who's controlling where it goes.

Having danced around the umbrella in the rain, I'll take the rain every time, and leave the umbrella to others. And I'll argue, and fight if need be, against anyone who denies me my freedom to be who I am. The rain is always better than the crowd.

JMO - National Security

Is national security an oxymoron? No, it's not a joke. I was wondering after reading an article about a photographer who was stopped by police after taking some photos of an oil refinery froma public street (article). The photographer did nothing wrong let alone illegal, but he was stopped by a private security guard who asked to see the images in the camera. The photographer denied the guard's request and was threatened with arrest.

The article states the photographer was well within his rights to be there and photograph, and the guard while protecting the refinery likely overstepped his authority on public property to stop let alone question the photographer. But in the name of national security we'll give the guard the right to exceed their autority and violate an individual's right?

But the real question to me isn't the individual's right, and yes, I'll side with the photographer 99% of the time, but if the refinery was important to be protected under national security, why is everything so obvious to the public? Why aren't there better fences and more signs (there are none as cited in the article)? If the guard has the right stop, detain and question a photographer, are they doing the same to tourists, people just looking, and anyone else who seems interested?

My point is that our country is so big and has some much infrastructure and facilities, it's impossible to secure and protect everything. And letting corporations had off the security and protection to local, state and federal governments is unfair to the public who has to pay the bills. Where are the companies protecting and securing their facilities if they feel it's a national security target?

All they have in this case is one security guard who has little if any authority outside the refinery?

My other point is that we're creating a big conflict, not just security versus rights, but the reality that law enforcement is overstepping their authority in the name of policies and ideas and not laws. I'm not against securing and especially protecting places from terrorists, but let's have some common senses and let's have law enforcement do their job correctly.

This case isn't that much different than the two times I've been stopped after photographing on a Washington State ferry. Both times, first the captain and second a State Patrol officer, were within their rights to stop and question me and I shared my images with them (if would have been different if I had used film). But they didn't do anything else and even said the images weren't a problem.

This even after the Washington State Ferry System (WSF) released public statements that it's legal to photograph on a ferry, just not secured and protected places and equipment. But then the WSF released a public brochure advising tourists to report photographers. Why on earth create conflicting ideas, especially when the brochure alludes that photographing on ferries is illegal?

And that's my point too, law enforcement, and politicians too, are creating paranoia where it's not necessary or helpful. There isn't anything that will be photographed that hasn't been photographed and published somewhere. All the cows are out of the barn and protecting them in the pasture is too much too late. We're not a police state but we're rapidly getting there, not out of need or justification, but out of fear.

And that's where we've lost, and every citizen has lost, our rights to be citizens. We should not be driven be fear and paranoia. We're a better country and nation than that. We should be driven by pride in our country and nation, secure in the rights of citizens and in the protection of those rights by law enforcement. And not treat citizens as threats or terrorists.