Three years ago my brother moved down under to live a year on a work/travel visa in Australia. He got some great photos at many famous Ozzie locations including this one at Uluru (Ayres Rock) that he’s selling on iStock photo:
He messaged me yesterday to let me know he found out it’s being used in a political ad created by Paul Andersen and Adrian Elton, This is what we Australi-Are. The video is the winning entry in a contest to create television ads that promote a better, fairer, more progressive Australia. A friend of his from London recognized him.
Flickr user i didn’t mean to go to Stoke posted this photo and story about this security guard in the process of detaining him and a friend for taking photos in the outdoor, pedestrianized area of Middlesbrough, UK.
I don’t know how traumatized the guy was after being detained but I hope some good comes out of it as people learn that there is nothing illegal or unethical about street photography.
His friend captured some video coverage of the incident.
Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.
A grass fire near the English Oaks subdivision broke out around 4:45pm yesterday. When firefighters arrived, vinyl siding on the southern-most home was warping under the heat of flames that were about seven metres from the residence. Firefighters ran their hoses through the inside of one of the homes nearby to put down the blaze.
The southern-most residence was the only home with direct fire damage.
Here are a few of my photos of the scene.
Last fall Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk interviewed Marc Levoy, Stanford University Professor of both computer science and electrical engineering.
Levoy shows them leading edge research about automatically stitching images together, digitizing real world three dimensial objects like statues, and among others, camera technology that allows you to refocus the image AFTER you shoot it! (Multi-array imaging)
You can view the interview here.
CNet has an article about the multi-dimensional focusing technology here.
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By way of a little self indulgence, here is a photo my brother took of me dunking the basketball last weekend. Does my long hair and beard remind anyone else of Teen Wolf?
The best images of 2007 as picked out by Time. (Someone needs to teach the time.com web developers the magic of AJAX).
This summer, while working at a camera/photography store in Lethbridge, one of the jobs I did was Photoshop work and printing photos.
One day a middle-aged woman came into the store carrying an old 8×10 of her deceased parents. She explained that the photo had been damaged when it fell off the wall and the glass protecting it, broke and cut into the image. She asked if we would be able to photoshop the damage out and make a new copy.
Before I could speak, the manager of the store pulled the image from my hand and inspected the photograph.
“Who took the photo?”
There was no stamp on the back and she didn’t know. She explained, “It was taken about 30 years ago by a photographer that their pastor hired to take family photos at their church”.
He told her due to copyright laws, he would not print her a new image. (Nevermind the illegally copied Photoshop program he was using to charge $45/hour to make other’s copies).
Should it be illegal to recover the woman’s photo? Common sense revolts at the idea.
But she never did get it fixed.
See this great TED talk by Larry Lessig speaking about the shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws.
I realize it has been a long time since I’ve posted anything here, but I’ve been busy!
Most recently I’ve found myself down in Mesquite, Nevada getting ready to watch my brother-in-law compete in the World Long Driving Competition.
Today my family and I drove to Las Vegas to take in the sights and sounds of the notorious city. I’d share everything that I did, but you know what they say about “what happens in Vegas…”
If you’re really interested, you can check out and comment on some of my flickr photos from today’s travels.
My brother-in-law, Glen, was in Wyoming a couple weeks ago competing in an Open Long Drive competition and ended up winning a ticket to the Re/Max Long Drive World Championship Tournament in Mesquite, Nevada this October.
Longdrivers.com lists him as the Open Division Winner with a distance of 337 yds 24 inches. I’m looking forward to watching him progress through the 11 rounds that it takes to win the Championship in Mesquite.
(Photo credit to Glen’s talented wife Jackie Hutchinson. IMHO she’s the best photographer in Drayton Valley.)
Currently if you have a large image that you need to make smaller for the web you can either scale it or crop it. Scaling makes everything smaller and cropping can cut out important content. This incredible video demonstrates an image re-sizing algorithm that is content-aware. It’s pretty cool and I figure it’s something that is going to make someone a lot of money.
Hit play or watch at YouTube.
My sister submitted this photo to JPG Magazine. Please click on the image and then if you think it fits with the theme “family”, vote it up! Thanks.
What you are about to watch is truly remarkable, and it just gets better as it goes.
Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from [Flickr], Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.
Hit the black triangle for play embedded in this window or the full screen button on the right.
See more on Seadragon and Photosynth. (Please note that these links go to Microsoft sites which are notorious for destroying old links—chances are if you’ve come here through the archives, these links no longer work).
Thomas Hawk points out where to get an 8GB Extreme III memory Card for just $89US.
I just rediscovered a great photography tip. It involves setting the flash to fire at either the beginning or end of a long exposure.
But only when I read this article was I reminded that the rear flash on a long exposure can be a great way to expose those fun low light party situations.
For Nikon DSLR users, like myself:
“Press and hold the flash pop-up button, then rotate the thumbwheel. Try having the camera in the “M”, “A” “S” and “P” modes to see the different flash sync options in different modes.”
Instructions for other cameras are given in their comments.
This is something I learned some time ago but somehow neglected to put into actual use. Now that I’ve been reminded of it, it will change the way I use my on-camera flash; it will tide me over until I get that off-camera flash that I’ve been dreaming about.