Canon 300d Gallery online

Uploaded the Canon 300d gallery today.

Creativity v Technology

One of the things I have noticed using the new Canon 300D is that as I (can) have *complete* control over how the camera works I'm less inclined to use it as a tool that I have subverted to make random/accidental images with. Hmm it's kinda hard to put into words here, but what I have done in the past is used semi-automatic or automatic cameras and exploited their shortcomings to produce what *I* think are interesting images. Now this camera has the ability to allow me complete control over the final image, ie aperture AND shutter speeds, with a fairly straightforward TTL approach and now I feel less inclined to use the camera in the other ways that I have used digital/auto cameras. It's like digital *film* is still NOT a serious enough medium, to warrant an approach that is more than shooting from the hip to see what I get? Gary Winnogrand made this his life's work, he left a legacy of hundreds and thousands of rolls of film unprocessed and unproofed, he is often quoted saying that he took photographs to see how things looked photographed and digital is more than a perfect medium for this yet I still can't attach a level of seriousness to the "act of" deliberately pointing a digital camera at a scene and making an image with it. I have made a couple of quick prints from the Canon 300D and while they are more than acceptable the resolution doesn't quite make it to A3 sadly, still they are big enough to hang on a wall and have some presence of their own. And while we are at it, it is countdown time to the trip away, two weeks and counting. I predict a tight one this week on BB with it being between Terri, and Krystal, I soooooooo want Krystal to go it's going to be a tight one though, this fan site site has a pretty good track record and this is why I have changed my mind from Paul to the 2 girls, besides Paul didn't cop such a bad week of editing as I thought he would?

Preoccupations

Still snapping away with the Canon and am suitably impressed yet to make a print though, this will be the icing on the cake if it all works out, the raw files seem even better than the compressed and adjusted files from the camera. There is a storm brewing in the BB compound Merlin had a big fight with Paul. This incident has polarised the Behind BB forums, and will produce yet another predictable eviction on sunday night... Paul copulater, old fella! Maybe he's doing a Fat Bobby and wants out, who knows, perhaps his carefully planned strategy has slipped and he can't take it any more, only time will tell!

More news on the Canon

Have shot a ton of shots with the new camera, and am sorely impressed with the whole camera. One strange thing though? The battery which I thought I had completely charged on on Friday, seems to be only partially charged. On Friday I stopped on the way home, took quite a few shots, and ran out of battery, by the time I got home about 40 minutes later, it was able to take photos despite the battery indicator showing less than half, and has continued to work all weekend? So the battery indicator is no real indication of what is going on. The zoom lens defintely is not as sharp as the 50mm, ouch, cause I really love the wide angle end of it, the 18mm. Of course the card that came with it way too small luckily I had a 128mg card from my other camera that helped out.

New Canon EOS 300 D

My work just purchased a Digital Camera, a Canon EOS 300D, or if your in some other place other than Australia, the Canon Rebel. It came with a 18mm to 55mm zoom and a 50mm 1.8 lens. The 50mm lens is awesome, still working with the zoom, and even though I'm not good at hand holding cameras I am doubting the sharpness of this lens. This camera has some very nice features, it is really fast to work with, for a digital camera. The menus on the camera are intuitive, and easy to navigate. It's a bit light for my liking though, and does not have a flash nipple. All round this camera is a beauty and worth the price we paid for it. I've got it for the weekend and hope to blast a shitload of images off with it, maybe even add a little gallery on my own site? Thinking of buying a digital camera? The site dpreview.com has some great reviews on cameras, we did all our research before buying our little Minolta DiMAGE G400 on there a few months ago. Which as a small, and I mean small, pocket camera, is truly magnificent, long as you are happy with 6 x 4 snaps only.

All talked out

Well it's Thursday, already I'm all talked out, I still have Friday to go, then 3 more weeks after that, before the big trip. What can I say? Bring it on I guess. In the meantime check out this photography studio in inner North Melbourne Australia - Whitehouse, cool site nice imagery, needs flash though?

Preparations

Well the big trip is 4 weeks away. Things are slowly starting to take shape. We have a house sitter. The small issues like finances are being looked after. I recently discovered that my folding 6x9 camera is actually working again. Now I will have a serious camera for the trip after all, phew. We are driving past the Salton Sea and I didn't want to miss making images of that one. (The Salton sea is a man made lake that has flooded several times in it life leaving many homeless as it's water levels encroached on the trailer parks and other areas occupied by people around the lake, Richard Misrach has used a large format camera to capture the surreal beauty of this environment, he, by the way, is one of my favourite photographers) BB is starting to hot up sadly I'll miss the mid to end game coz I'll be OS

Winter light

Well yesterday I wrote about the light in the afternoon and what a Sunset! Fucking awesome! The position that the school is in exaggerates the view, we are on the edge of an old quarry cliff, with great views of the city. East of the city of course so looking in towards the CBD allows us to see these awesome sunsets. Today we are getting more of the same, so what to do head out, see a movie? Take a camera or two and snap a couple of shots? Oh what a dilemma? Coffee out on the streets after browsing a bookshop or two, would be nice to?

Light

Sitting here at work in the colour print room working with students and staring south out the window, I can see the light that Melbourne produces at this time of year...so effortlessly. Rich textured, warm - despite the air temp. This is often the time of year that I do a lot of image making with some sort of camera, recently it's been a digital camera, a humble little 2 meg Kodak dc 260. I also like using my Nokia Mobile phone camera, and a 126 camera. Might start experimenting with an old box brownie soon too, they can take modern 120 film if you still have the original metal spool in the camera

thank god for...

Big brother is hotting up early this year.....yehaaa!

Pressure cooker time?

Haven't been able to resist poking around any bb forums I can get my 2 cents worth in on, behind big brother probably going to shape up to be the one for this year. Dropped out from this crazy e-mail forum,(called big brother live in australia,) full of stiffs and dweebs, and top posters who just couldn't get their head around the idea that 'conversations' are real hard to follow when people post over the top of you! Anyway the volume was getting out of hand and the signal to noise ratio was way to low for my liking, how many times do you need to read lol, or rflmao, yes scintillating indeed. Plus, there were several battlers on that list who kept wearing their hearts on their sleeves, eeeewwww. Not my cup o' tea so I am out of there. Tonight Sunday is the first round of nominations for BB and if i wasn't so busy I'd be excited. "What am I so busy with on a weekend you ask?" Well glad you did, preparing for a seminar I am giving in just over a week, in Photoshop, trying to prepare for next weeks class at VU, in CMA, planning the big OS trip, then there is the interview next week, teaching V.E.T. photography at R.M.I.T no less! A good friend cut the advert for this job out of the paper for me and as a last minute thing I dashed off an application, over a month ago now. Late last week I got a phone call, "can you please come in for an interview?" So off I go on Tuesday next week for an interview for a job that I don't need! Now that's gotta be a first; in my life anyway! Teaching photography, was not anything I ever set out to do 17 years ago when I tentatively walked in the gates of what was then Brighton Technical School, to study something I had a vague interest in, fulltime study too no less. I was 25, I had been busy partying for the previous 6 years or so and ended up in what I thought was a dead end job(it was). It was a big step for me, and during those first tentative steps in the gates I nearly didn't follow though. I came this close to giving up before even starting, ( a common element of my life up to that point) now here I am 17 years later teaching it, photography, at a Post Secondary level, and also teaching Art/multimedia at a Tertiary level, who would have thought eh! This whole photography thing has blossomed into a whole bunch of positives for me. Some of the other not so tangible benefits from me following through on that decision in 1987 are, that I met my wife and have purchased a house, and am about to Jet off around the world for 6 weeks, who would have known? Of course it's not the photography directly as such, it was the teachers I worked with at both the post secondary level and the tertiary level that got me there, you know who are and to you all I owe a huge debt of gratitude, it has been a life changing experience and I only hope that I can continue the tradition of excellent teaching I have received and continue to share the knowledge gained and shared with all those who cross my path.

is this the year...

...that I don't watch Big Brother, the footy player is creeping further and further ahead, I'm told by others who did not miss the show last night, Tuesday, that the Footy player is a male reggie...arrrgh! Foiled again, of course a part of me will watch to see if he gets kicked off early but I don't reckon it's gunna happen... Ah well I guess I get to keep my life this year?

Errata

Well I updated the site as I promised, fortunately I have my laptop back and TV on Saturday nights is pretty ho hum. Looking at the images from the recent update, the prices actually ranged from $2.99 to $5.99, which i think is bit steep in some ways for this store but I was impressed with the way the objects looked "wrapped in plastic" so to speak. Glad I made the effort to create and upload the pages last night, coz tonight there will not be the same vibe in our house. My private obsession, along with several million others is the TV show, Big Brother. Which starts tonight, Sunday. Already the Housemates are in the house, so I guess tonight's show won't be live. And the low down on the new housemates form one of several gossip sites out there is,

• A 1 million dollar prize instead of $250000
• Some housemates are related and one couple may be married.
• one housemate is a single mum
• One housemate is a father
• One surfie
• One fijian or Guy Sebastian look-a-like, fro and all
• A couple of them are over 30...
• One bird is named Afradiatie
• One guy named Igor
• Another is named Merlin

This time for some reason I am much more excited about it all and am waiting excitedly for it all to kick off. I will of course run my usual commentary from my site but may also use this page to spout off so to speak. Other places for BB goss, I like Behind Big brother, it has been an interesting source of info for the last couple of seasons and is where I got all the info above from this year. Another site that may be worth sniffing around is some street car mag of all things. Based in Queensland, they have a section devoted to BB, as it's based in Q'ld I'm sure that the news will be pretty current and up to date. Last year I got involved in a forum that was a total anarchic mosh pit. Strangely it seems to have disappeared completely, hardly surprising in some ways, the commentary on a certain obese contestant saddened me. (even if she didn't deserve to win)

Photography... Who uses it

Jumped on a pushbike today for a while, feeling the effects a bit now. However, as usual I took my digital camera along and the phone camera as well, noticed a couple of things caught my eye, but interest soon waned, blasted off a heap of shots inside our local Savers store, may try and post them on my site later today or in the next few days. This store collects 2nd hand clothing and resells it, as part of some charitable set up. On one wall was a heap of toys bagged up in small semi-connected groups and priced around the two dollar to four dollar mark, some of which were Barbie dolls and Action Man or GI Joe. Pretty fucking surreal seeing these 'bodies' bagged up and hanging on a wall. Anyway snapped a few without getting accosted by anyone then that was it really. When we grabbed a coffee later on we were given a 'Jaffa' with our coffee. It looked really clean and bright so I took a couple of shots with the mobile phone camera and may post them on my site as well.

friday reflections

well things were running hot around here this week once I picked up the new laptop. to start with the bb e-mail list big brother live in australia on yahoo has just gone beserk. tons of noise to signal ratio though, hmmm need a rethink i think. all sorts of work is piling up here though, a whole heap of monochrome materials assignments from my photography students, have been handed in. currently sitting near my desk gathering dust so to speak guess i'll look at them soon! still need to do heaps to the school website add any necessary notices and maybe put some images up online from the recent camp in the otways, well not that recent but it is the only one we have each year. been thinking a bit about digital photography these days. one of our recent interviewees mentioned the idea that as good quality gold cds are no longer available people's images that are stored on the non gold cds will not last, as long as film anyway. so what does this mean? people stop using digital, invest in cms, content management systems, different hardware, i guess there must be some options out there. to be honest my little 2 meg camera images whilst there are plenty of them are not the kind of images i would consider precious enough to worry about their longevity. certainly as far as screen based work is concerned i can't even be sure all will see them the way i want them to be seen. some one recently expressed disappointment that i was considering abandoning analog all together, given that i have an online photography gallery 24/7. that can display images in all sorts of ways, randomly, in a linear manner, as post-modern nonlinear narrative, the possibilities are pretty exciting. plenty of food for thought there. i actually over the recent holidays put a series of images in a book that i am hoping to self publish very soon... along with a million other things i want to do!

it's here it's here

with much fanfare here it is the new 14 inch iBook stay tuned for more!

and now something you've all been waiting for

yes I took the phone call earlier today, in the middle of my uni class, (naughty, naughty, phone was still on for other reasons), the laptop is ready to be picked up!! any way this is the last post NOT done from my laptop

eating out

had brekky out this morning at our favourite local restaurant. huge it was. so huge i doubt i'll eat much again today,

• 2 small hash browns,
• 1 chicken and herb sausage,
• 2 poached eggs,
• 3 rashers of bacon
• 2 halves of atomatoe and
• 2 cups of coffee

mmmm! went for a long walk afterwards to counter the effects, so hopefully it'll all be a net gain of zero. the weather is shocking out there, and me thinks that melbourne is throwing one of it's tanties before the real bad weather kicks in so i'm expecting a couple more small bouts of good weather before we fly off to the northern summer. almost...almost got out in the darkroom and printed today! downloaded a couple of nifty apps last night, 'you control' and 'launchbar', both from versiontracker dot com. you control adds all this stuff to your finder window and allows quick and easy access to all sorts of info, time (in several places around the world if you want), files and folders on your hard drive, amounts of unread e-mail, news items that you may be interesteded in reading on and on. the other allows you to work with your computer without using the dock, just some shortcut keys to go anywhere on your hard drive, its freeware so i reckon i'll keep it, the other isn't and it's giong to cost me $75-120.00 australlian so i will need to think long and hard about it! coz it's a little ripper and could almost be worth it, just for the news aggregator alone.

tgif

reading my last entry it would be easy to get confused as to where i was writing from. well i wrote it from work, and here i am at home making the last entry for this week, glad i set this all up as having to download and upload all sorts of different versions of my site would just confuse the hell out of me. which is the only way i can figure that i could work without my laptop, which by the way should be in my hot little hands by this time next week, and not a moment too soon. the shit hit the fan today as far as the weather is concerned here in melbourne town. sitting here at home heater on and still thinking about slipping into something a little more comfortable/warm, no cheeky my wife isn't home yet. 'bout time we had some rain though, god knows the garden needs it. the crazy weather even impacted on the classes at work this morning. i was late, along with 2 other staff members and a further 2 called in sick, great start for a our newest staff member, almost a trial by fire. given that hp took him under her wing the poor guy may have second thoughts about even working with us. hope not he seems pretty cool, unlike hp! got a stack of assignments sitting on my desk at work. all from the recently completed monochrome materials unit that i teach as part of the diploma of arts applied photography at pic. sure as hell NOT looking forward to marking all that! still it will be interesting to see how the students fare, they often come out with some surprising results. last year was a bit of a classic several students were convinced that there 11 zones in the zone system. as far as i'm concerned 0 is not a number and has no detail, so it don't count. it also kinda nice to see lots of different images printed up on a variety of papers. my favourite of which is forte. a wonderful warm and rich silver gelatin paper that despite it's lack of speed is a true gem in this day and age of dull old variable contrast papers.

the more things change the more they stay the same

i was right, it was pretty chaotic here today. as a kind of side bonus because i had no laptop i couldn't access my notes for the afternoon class, industrial photography so it was brief one and i don't think too many of the students were complaining either about the short class. no surprises there either. placed the school order for the 14 inch iBook today, sadly this looks like the one that was going to get past the wicket keepers the easiest so to speak. which means, while there will be a noticeable improvement in performance for me i am going to have to download my camera images a different way, probably with iPhoto, at least it'll have a built in burner and i'll be able to back up much easier. director will run better as well. sadly i predict a week wait still as it is already late in the week. stay tuned for an update on that one! one of the interesting things about teaching photography at this level, ie post high school, is that the students can be a little more demanding than in a high school enviroment. which can be a double edged sword sometimes, but generally i would argue that it is more positive than negative. as an example, after a class on different format cameras, then a session of setting up the darkrooms, i barely got a chance for a morning teabreak and my lunch break was shortened considerably also, still as i said at the beginning i was able to dismiss the class after lunch after only a short discussion and get on with the iBook purchase order and a software order. one might argue, who really needs a teabreak anyway, well if there's one thing i've learnt in my short teaching career, it's that 'pacing one's self' is the only way to make it through 40 weeks of teaching. all breaks included.