Sunrise or sunset? I suppose that will depend if the glass is half full or half empty for you on this Monday. Either way I hope that everyones Monday starts off well.
Photographed below are California Oak trees in a grassy meadow. If you’ve been to California you’ll know that much of the landscape inland from the coast resembles this scene. Several years ago I would often travel from Santa Barbara, in the central coast region of California, to north of San Francisco in Marin county. Much of the view along the way was this very type of landscape. Driving by this landscape it’s easy to take for granted the forms and textures present in this environment. Only recently have I started to explore this common view by foot and each time I’ve learned something new and/or gained a new perspective. It’s amazing how a sense of discovery can be found in your own backyard, so to speak, versus half way around the world.
Technorati Tags: California, photography, landscape, nature, stock photo, oak, tree
11
May
Posted in Software, Technology by Jim |
For some strange reason I started to experience really odd behavior with Adobe Lightroom this weekend. In the end I burned a good portion of my weekend dealing with reviving Lightroom rather than working on my photographs. This made me a very unhappy camper as I’ve been short on time to catch up on post-processing. How far this will set me back I have no idea, but its not going to be a short amount of time as my schedule is growing increasingly busy. What I’ve since learned is that I was not alone in dealing with this dilemma over the weekend. I’ve since read up that Dawn Armfield and Raoul Pop experienced problems recently. Raoul ended up putting out a video detailing how to fix his specific problem (Dealing with a corrupted previews catalog in Lightroom).
So what was the deal? I started up Lightroom only to have nothing appear. Thats right nothing, yet my computer (Apple G5 Quad with 4GB RAM running 10.4.x and Lightroom 1.3.1) showed that it was running. I tried looking online for all kinds of information describing this problem and ended up pushing forward with a much delayed upgrade to OS X 10.5 and Lightroom 1.4.1.
After backing up my internal drives and completing the upgrades I started up my computer only to experience the same weird behavior. Only this time the program was indeed running, just with no windows open. None of my catalogs (original or backup) could be opened via File > Open. In fact when doing so I received the following error “Error on Mac: An error occurred when attempting to change modules.”
I searched online with limited results but eventually found this thread of discussion aptly titled “Error on Mac: An error occurred when attempting to change modules.” Nothing worked until I brought over my last backed up catalog from another drive. The application still would not open it via File > Open, but being on an Apple computer I was able to drag the catalog to the application icon and it opened finally. Once open, per the support thread noted above, I went to “File > Catalog Settings > Relaunch and Optimize”. This seemed to do the trick once I got my catalog open. The challenge was getting it open in the first place. Such a pain in the ass.
Only after I got Lightroom up and running and ranting on Twitter did I learn that others were also having this problem. Seeing as how nothing changed on my computer when this first started and continued to be a problem even after my upgrades I’m wondering what could have caused the problem. Watching Raoul’s video I noticed something we have in common. We’re both using mirrored drives. I also noticed in the support thread that I found that many Apple computer users were experiencing similar problems while using external FW800 drives. I myself am using two external FW800 drives. My primary catalog is stored on my un-mirrored non-FW internal drive so I have no idea what the cause is. It is possible that I had a problem at some point and had to hard shut down the computer or the drives and perhaps that contributed to the problem. Either way I hope that Adobe is able to put out a fix and/or if you happen to experience this problem (or one that is similar) my experience helps you save a few hours of aggravation.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop, Lightroom, corrupt, catalog, error
11
May
Posted in Links & Articles, Photography by Jim |
This past week proved to be an exceptionally good week for photography related content on the web. Having been active in the online photography community since the late 90’s I’ve become increasingly impressed with the growth and quality of this community. The level of quality this past week deserves special attention, particularly the following links:
Speedlinks - 05/06/08 - Orphan Works Edition - Photography Business News & Forum
Many great reads on the history and a variety of perspectives on the recent revival of the Orpan Works legislation. If you’re unaware of this legislation and what impact it could have on you catch up here and let your voice be heard.
Ansel Adam’s Yosemite - New York Times
Former assistant to Ansel Adams, Andrea G. Stillman, provides some very interesting narrative to 9 of Ansel’s most famous work. I posted this earlier in the week, but found it too good not to link to twice.
Kodak’s First Digital Camera - Retro Thing
Think some of the newer dSLRs are a bit bulky? This link puts it into perspective how far we’ve come with digital camera technology. Once again I posted this earlier in the week, but found it too good not to link to twice.
Freedom of Speech Photography Video - In The Field
Photography to stir the soul. Richard Wong displays some of his recent photojournalism photographs via a video on YouTube.
16 Steps In Answering A Customer Inquiry - Digital Protalk
A bit of business etiquette every photographer should become familiar with… answering a customer inquiry. David Ziser gives a great overview to this most basic of business practice.
Do you know what Hyperfocal Distance is? - PhotoWalkPro
Jeff Revell provides a great intro to Hyperfocal Distance. If you’re interested in getting sharper images this is a must read. How fitting I put it in this post 
Your Complete Guide To Adobe Bridge - Epic Edits
Brian Auer completes his excellent 7-article write up on Adobe Bridge.
Photo Contests WTD 473 - What The Duck
A classic comic.
Back in the Time Machine Link:
The Essential Landscape - Six Silver Bullets by Guy Tal
The land of the midnight sun (aka Alaska) produces some of the most beautiful light for photography. The trick is being able to see it through the quickly changing weather conditions. Not far from my camp when I took this photo the midnight sun kissed the mountainside as a storm front was moving in. With in minutes this beautiful light had vanished only to appear hours later as the storm cleared. To this day I’m in awe of how rugged yet beautiful this landscape is. Looking through Arctic photos these past couple of days I’m getting the itch to return as soon as I can.
Arctic Refuge: Hidden Beauty
View More Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Photos…
Technorati Tags: Arctic, Arctic Refuge, ANWR, photo, photography, landscape, scenic, Kongakut River, valley, Alaska
8
May
Posted in Camera, Photography, Technology by Jim |
This has been making the rounds online this week and I had to share it in case any readers here have missed it. In 1975 Kodak developed the first digital camera prototype. Hardly something you’d carry around your neck to a family function. 100 line black and white image were recorded to a cassette tape and took 23 seconds to write. The “microcomputer” being the size of a large VCR was required to display the image on a “monitor” (actually a TV).
The question I have is how many MegaPixels rather MilliPixels would this have been?
Read and see more photos of this beast of a computer here:
Kodak’s First Digital Camera
Technorati Tags: Kodak, first, digital camera,
Still one of the most amazing locations I’ve traveled to, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is full of pristine beauty. This location, aptly named Caribou Pass, is where the Porcupine herd passes from Canada to the Alaskan Arctic Plain every year. To give you some orientation to this scene… this is the view looking south towards the Brooks Range of Alaska, to the left (east) is Canada, to the right (west) is the Arctic Plain where the Caribou give birth to their young and behind (north) is a mountain top view of the Arctic Plain and Arctic Ocean. It’s been a while since I’ve viewed this photo, but doing so reminds me of how beautiful and fragile this landscape is.
Arctic Refuge: Caribou Pass Valley View
View More Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Photos…
Technorati Tags: Arctic, Arctic Refuge, ANWR, photo, photography, landscape, scenic, Caribou Pass, Alaska, wildflower
7
May
Posted in Photography by Jim |
As a follow up to yesterdays Copyright 2.0: Copyright In The Hyper Digital Age (Video) post…
If you’re just now starting to hear about Orphan Works legislation read the link below on the Stock Artists Alliance web site to get up to speed. If you’re a photographer, even if you consider yourself an amateur, it is in your best interest to lobby your Senator or Congressperson. The second link below is the easiest way to do that with a form that automatically selects your Senator or Congressperson based on your address.
Orphan Works 2008 Commentary - by the Stock Artists Alliance
Take Action: Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work - Sending A Letter To Your Congressperson Made Easy
This page gives you a variety of forms that when filled out is automatically sent to your Congressperson/Senator.
Technorati Tags: Orphan Works, legislation, Copyright
Here in California during the Spring all the photographers go crazy looking for wildflowers. While wildflowers are great I can’t help but think a flowerless field is equally if not more attractive. A field such as this is quite a busy subject to photograph, yet due to our exposure to grass on an everyday basis we seem to lump it all together into one object.
Back in college chemistry there was the concept of the “Avagadro number”, a value of 6.022×10^23 or 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in 12 grams of carbon. “A mole is defined as this number of “entities” (usually, atoms or molecules) of any material.” (courtesy of Wikipedia) In one of my lectures a philosophical if not rhetorical question was asked by my professor, “How many moles of sand are on the beach?” The concept of this value was mind boggling to me. Looking at this picture less wildflowers I’m left to ponder how many moles of blades of grass are in this field? on this hillside? in this state park? in California? To think how much life this represents and how much life resides in these fields is awe inspiring to me.
Technorati Tags: California, field, grass, sky, sun, spring, springtime, stock photo, landscape, photography
