Category: photography

About taking pictures

The pocket digicam

I haven’t written about photography in a while. This is probably a bad sign for my soul because it means I haven’t been shooting much lately.

I am in the market for a new digital camera and was wondering if you could recommend a worthy one. I’m far from a pro, so a basic point and shoot of awesome quality, reasonable price, and lightweight for 100 lb. weaklings would work just fine for me. Someone said I should get a Sony Cybershot. Any recommendations?

I’m always getting e-mails and IMs like this. Because I carry around an expensive camera, people assume I have an opinion. It’s been years since I’ve actually written about this and I don’t even shoot this sort of camera anymore. So what advice to give?

Continue reading about Entry level camera purchasing advice after the jump

Posted on by tychay 13

LIFE on Google

I read a while ago that the LIFE photography archive was on Google, but I didn’t really think about it until I stumbled across it while checking out the new version of CoolIris, which I’ve mentioned before.

On a whim, I tried looking for the famous cover photo of the LIFE article on the Lindy Hop.

The Lindy Hop

In CoolIris you can easily see that this version of the image was scanned from a physical print that has creases in the upper right. Here is the magazine cover, August 23, 1943.

I’d have taken a video but for some reason the video in SnapzPro doesn’t work with CoolIris on Safari. 🙁

The name “Lindy Hop” came because a news article on Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 flight of the Atlantic. It is said that the newspaper headline of the day read “Lindy Hops the Atlantic.”

Speaking of which, I wondered if they had a photo of the man who introduced aerials to dancing: Frankie Manning.

Yep, there’s one.

I met Frankie Manning once in 1998. I used to take photos and video of my friends dancing, so I asked him, on a whim, to give an intro to the website on camera. He looked into the videocam and said:

Welcome to the UIUC Swing Society web site. Those hep cats are really swinging!

Haha. I should dig up that video. Good times.

Posted on by tychay 1

Elane Photography

A friend of mine, a colleague and excellent photographer who happens to be a defense-of-marriage person posted a status update that erupted into a firestorm of comments on Facebook. His claim was that people like me are “intolerant” of his beliefs.

To those people, I might say disagreement is not intolerance. I’m not asking you to change your beliefs, I only hope that you be tolerant to others theirs. As for the bible, it says many things about marriage, some of which you’d be hard pressed to defend now. Some of “the other side,” you know, love us some scripture too. 😉

But more interesting than that rehash would be the part I find fascinating. In the course of the comments he brought up an interesting case that apparently has been making the rounds:

A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer, Elaine Huguenin, to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination. It ordered her to pay the lesbian couple’s legal fees ($6,600). The photographer is appealing.

Hmm, at first blush, I side with the photographer. But then a little thought breaks it all apart.

Continue reading about The first amendment defense after the jump

Posted on by tychay 14

Voting in America

California is the swingiest of swing states. In recent memory, two Republican presidents were governors here. Now it is bluer than the balls of all those fratboys voting for Sarah Palin. Even though the Presidential election in this state is a foreground conclusion, you still get a lot of mail

Voting mailers

Election mailers
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, Canon 500D diopter
1/80sec @ f/2.8, iso 360, 28mm (28mm)

Especially egregious is the phone book the city of SF gave me. Not that the California ballot measures were that thin either. Luckily, I had a stomach flu this morning, so I had time to read and research this stuff.

Election packet

Election Packet
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, Canon 500D diopter
1/80sec @ f/2.8, iso 320, 32mm (32mm)

There was no line at my polling place. It was next to Trader Joe’s.

My polling place

My polling place
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1
1/200sec @ f/4, iso 80, 6.3mm (28mm)

Yes, I voted for “That One.”

Yes, I’m voting for “That One.”

Yes, I’m voting for “That One.”
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1
1/30sec @ f/2.8, iso 80, 6.3mm (28mm)

After I scanned in my ballots, I grabbed an “I Voted!” sticker. At the street corner an old lady noticed me holding it and thanked me.

I’ve never been more proud to be living in America.

Posted on by tychay 5

Two shoes

I have a friend who loves Sex and the City and recently moved into San Francisco. “Glad to hear you’re enjoying ‘the City.’ Now on to the ‘Sex and…’ part 😀 ,” I wrote her.

Her reply: “I am already loving the city so much. But the “Sex and” part won’t be quite as exciting. I’m very much a goody two shoes you know. 😉 ”

My reply: “The only people who say they’re goody two shoes are ones who probably have a closet full of bad shoes.”

…

So imagine the irony when I found out she just started a blog about shoes. If you like shoes, subscribe to her blog!

Continue reading about [Bonus story after the jump]

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The boxes we are

A random post on my stalker feed brings me back of the last party

…

“Are you single?” It’s the second time at the party, Alex has asked that. The internal dialog is now in fine form.

This is San Francisco, shouldn’t you ask if I’m gay first?, “Stop trying to fill out my social networking registration page, Alex”

Somewhat less emphatically: “You are single?!” Then slightly more emphatically: “Terry is single”—as if repetition makes it true.

I’m in a relationship with my Nikon and it’s complicated. “My status is not some box you can check off,” I retort.

“Wait, you are single, aren’t you?” decidedly less emphatically.

That’s thrice! Damn Canon photogs! “You couldn’t even shoot my D3.” I laugh.

“Terry is single,” Alex declares to anyone who was interested. (Nobody was.)

Nelson Muntz voice: “Ha ha!” Maybe if you were a Nikon-toting hottie, I’d have given you a straight answer.

Party photography Q&A tree

Now, in my defense, when it comes to that senseless brand war, I have to represent. But I admit that it was a bit harsh, especially since, as an event photographer himself, he must get asked my most-despised geek-party conversation starter an awful lot: “Who are you with?” (i.e. “Who are you shooting for so I know if I should do a posedown.”)

We hates it, my precious, yes we do.

Coincidentally, just that day, I devised a customer support answer tree to turn this question into a lethal conversation-killer:

Party photography Q&A tree: “Who you with?”

…then give them that dismissive look, like they just said something incredibly stupid.

Continue reading Boxes and banter after the jump

Posted on by tychay 6